


Stick With Me

by National_Nobody



Series: Bluepulse Week 2020 [4]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, Bluepulse Week 2020, Cuddling & Snuggling, Day 7: Free Day, Feelings Realization, M/M, Making Out, Stuck in a Cabin trope, canon compliant through S2, idiots to lovers, past Bart Allen/Eduardo Dorado Jr (referenced), past Jaime Reyes/Traci Thurston (referenced), trapped together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24989485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/National_Nobody/pseuds/National_Nobody
Summary: Bluepulse Week 2020 Day 7: Free Day“This,” Bart announced, hands on his hips in the middle of what might generously be described as a kitchen, “is officially moded.”Jaime sighed, turning away from the raging swirls of white outside the window. “Hermano, we fell out of an exploding plane flying over the middle of nowhere and landed right into a blizzard. Just be grateful we found a cabin, let alone an empty one.”“Not that—this!” With a swift breeze of indistinguishable movement, Bart had all the kitchen cabinet doors flung open, revealing an impressive amount of...absolutely nothing. “Not even one bag of old junk food, Blue!” Bart spread his arms wide, despairingly. “Zip, zilch, nada! Seriously, what kind of shelter is this?”(Every ship needs to have at least ONE trapped together trope fic okay? It's a classic & I'm just doing my civic duty).
Relationships: Bart Allen/Jaime Reyes, Khaji Da & Jaime Reyes
Series: Bluepulse Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799878
Comments: 60
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivyxwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyxwrites/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shhh, we're just going to pretend this isn't a day late.
> 
> I may or may not have promised [ivyxwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyxwrites) I'd write this for her a WHILE back, and while I didn't _plan_ for it to be multi chap, that's just how it goes sometimes, y'know? (I also highkey recommend that you go read her bluepulse fics as well bc Ivy is a gem and so are her stories).
> 
> Enjoy!

“This,” Bart announced, hands on his hips in the middle of what might generously be described as a kitchen, “is officially moded.”

Jaime sighed, turning away from the raging swirls of white outside the window. “Hermano, we fell out of an _exploding plane_ flying over the middle of _nowhere_ and landed right into a _blizzard_. Just be grateful we found _a_ cabin, let alone an _empty_ one.”

“Not that— _this!_ ” With a swift breeze of indistinguishable movement, Bart had all the kitchen cabinet doors flung open, revealing an impressive amount of...absolutely nothing. “Not even _one_ bag of old junk food, Blue!” Bart spread his arms wide in despair. “Zip, zilch, _nada!_ Seriously, what kind of shelter is this?”

The armor around Jaime’s face retracted as he stepped closer to one of the cabinets. Rubbing the back of his sore neck, he glowered into it, as if staring long enough might somehow make food appear.

“ _Great_.” He poked the cabinet door closed.

“Think there’s a storage cellar?” Bart asked.

“Worth a look.” Jaime shrugged. “How’s your—” a whoosh of wind ruffled Jaime’s hair. Jaime stared flatly at the spot where Bart had vanished. “...arm.”

“Hm?” Bart’s voice appeared behind him. Jaime turned, Bart’s head poking out of a trap door in the floor. “Oh, it’s all crash. Already forgot about it. Look!” He thrust the arm in question out of the hole with a triumphant smile, a jar of preserves in his hand. Guess that was a yes to the storage cellar. “There’s gotta be at least two months worth of food down here!”

“Crash,” Jaime smiled at him. “So what am I gonna eat?”

“Ha, ha,” Bart climbed out of the hole, putting the jar on the counter. “I still have three protein bars on me, thanks very much!”

“ _Oh_ , well that changes things,” Jaime said. “So, two jars for me and the rest for you?”

“Now you’re getting it!” Bart elbowed Jaime’s ribs with a grin. Jaime shook his head.

“Well, like I said before, it’s a miracle we found this place at all, so I can’t complain too loudly.”

“Mm, not loudly, but maybe frequently,” Bart said, thrusting a finger up for emphasis, “because you know what I was _going_ to do tonight, Blue?”

“Watch the newest episode of Space Trek?”

“And _now_ do you know what I’m gonna do tonight?”

“Not watch the newest episode of Space Trek?”

“ _Exactly_ Blue buddy, buddy-mine. Ex-act-ly.” Bart heaved a sigh, letting his head fall back as he paused in his attempt to open the jar he was holding. “M-o-d-e-d.”

Jaime leaned his back against the counter next to Bart with crossed arms. “On the bright side, no homework.”

“Yeah—” Bart grunted, struggling with the lid. “Always an—opendamnitcomeon—silver lining I guess.”

Jaime held a hand out, brow raised. Bart looked askance at him, glared once more at the jar, then passed it over begrudgingly. Jaime transformed his other hand into a blade and pried it loose, then passed it back with a nudge. “Gotta work on that arm strength, flacucho.”

Bart scoffed. “I loosened it for you. Also, you cheated.”

“Maybe I just didn’t want to make you look bad,” Jaime teased, poking Bart’s bicep. Bart scoffed again, batting him away.

“Listen, you.” He pointed, shoving his other hand on his hip. “I don’t have to stick around for this kind of slander. I have better things to do. Very, super important things. Like lighting a fire in that fireplace over there. I don’t see _you_ doing that, now are you, Mr. Strong Guy?”

Jaime bit back a laugh. “You do that, chiquito.”

“I _will_ ,” Bart huffed, tilting his nose up and zipping away (presumably) to go look for the cabin’s supply of dry wood and kindling.

Jaime shook his head again, his smile fading as he took one last glance around their...rustic surroundings.

The cabin was small, most of its footprint taken up by a sparsely furnished living area. The brick fireplace where Bart was now crouched took up a large chunk of one wall. Facing the fireplace was a threadbare, moss green couch that looked more like it belonged in a disheveled frat house than a cozy winter cabin. Beside the couch was a spindly end table that served both it and a dark leather armchair, its surface bare but for two square, dusty coasters. The other two coasters in the set were tucked into two corners of a squat, sturdy-looking coffee table, its dusty wooden surface equally bare.

He would have expected a place like this to be decorated with at least one creepy animal head, or rifle, or _something_ mounted on the wall. Instead, there was nothing but a framed map above the fireplace and hooks by the door to hang up coats, almost as if the owners had abandoned the whole endeavor soon after the cabin had been completed. It didn’t even smell that musty despite its current state, possibly masked by the piney scent of the wood and the sharpness of the cold winter air.

The kitchen where Jaime stood was squashed into one corner along the back wall and, like the living room, the same could be said of its decorations. Other than a set of knives and a couple of pot holders, there was next to nothing around him and only a handful of random items in the drawers. The one place to eat, as far as he could see, was a dining table barely big enough for the two rickety chairs on either side of it, to the right of the back door.

He glanced down the short hallway toward the last room he hadn’t checked yet, which Bart said was a single bedroom with a bathroom attached. He wasn’t eager to take stock of that, some small part of him hoping they’d be saved before they even had to worry about it. Even with Khaji keeping him warm and Bart being a human space-heater, he doubted whatever bed was in there would be giving them anything close to a good night’s rest. They also hadn’t tried the running water, afraid to let reality ruin the slim possibility of a hot shower.

As a last ditch effort, Jaime tried his communicator one more time. Same as before, he got nothing but static in answer. He swallowed, beating back the tendril of anxiety trying to worm its way into his chest.

They were fine. They had shelter, and food, and no serious injuries to worry about. They’d gotten themselves into _far_ more trouble than this before, and they were _superheroes_. It would be _fine_.

“Ta da!” Bart sang, arms outstretched as flames crackled to life in the fireplace, bringing out the red in Bart’s mission-mussed hair. Jaime took a deep breath in and let it out slow.

Silver linings...right. If he had to be stranded with _someone_ , at least he’d ended up with Bart.

+

“Stop looking so worried,” Bart chided, sitting with one leg slung over the side of the armchair and plowing through one of his speedster-grade protein bars. “I told you, there’s plenty of food. I’ll be fine.”

 _“That assessment is false,”_ Khaji Da refuted. _“The Bart Allen requires ten thousand calories per day in order to operate at full capacity. Accounting for the supplemental nutritional bars, unless you are rescued within the next two days, the Bart Allen’s speed and healing factor will be affected.”_

“Khaji says you're full of it,” Jaime shot back from his spot on the floor by the hearth. “And you’re talking with your mouth full again.”

Bart covered his mouth with his palm and finished chewing.

“I mean,” Bart smirked, wiggling his eyebrows, “I _could_ have that candy bar you were saving in your hoodie pocket, if you really feel that bad about it.”

Jaime leveled an unimpressed look at him. Bart nudged Jaime’s shoulder with his foot.

“Hey, the storm will pass or the Team will find us in no time, okay? I’ve had it worse. Don’t get so hung up on it.”

Jaime swallowed and said nothing, pretending to turn his attention back to the fire.

 _I’ve had it worse_. In the future, he meant. Bart didn’t like to talk about it much, but come on, it was the _apocalypse_. Wasn’t hard to make the assumption that food wouldn’t have been easy to come by, especially for a speedster. Did he really think that’d make Jaime feel anything but _more_ bad about it?

His thoughts must have been evident on his face because Bart huffed and joined him on the floor.

“It’s not actually your job to keep me fed, you know. I’m just a master at bullying you into it,” Bart joked, poking Jaime’s cheek. Jaime frowned back at him.

“No, but it _is_ my job to keep you alive,” Jaime said. “We’re partners. That’s the deal.”

Bart glanced away, the heat of the fire bringing a flush to Bart’s cheeks. That was another part of Bart’s speedster metabolism: he always ran hot. As far as Jaime was concerned, the sign only further cemented his point.

“I’m not gonna keel over on you, Jaime,” he said exasperatedly. “I mean come on, even _without_ my speed I run faster than you. Besides, you really think I’m gonna go run in _that_ anytime soon?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the window, the blizzard still howling away.

“You might not have a choice,” Jaime argued. “Unless we find a way to contact the Team, we might _have_ to venture out there and see if there’s civilization nearby. We can’t sit here forever.”

“Two days isn’t forever,” Bart said. Jaime blinked in surprise. He hadn’t thought he’d said that part out loud. Bart laughed at him. “So little faith in me. I _can_ do math, you jerk. Really well, in fact! Which you ought to know by now, considering how often _I’m_ helping _you_ with your calc homework.”

“I’m more surprised you know the number of calories in all that food off the top of your head,” Jaime admitted.

“‘Course I do,” Bart said sagely. “I am crashtastic at eating. Eating _and_ math.”

Jaime smiled at that, despite himself. Bart grinned triumphantly back.

Shaking his head in defeat, Jaime slung an arm around Bart’s neck, squashing him roughly into a side hug. “Alright, just don’t lie if it starts to get bad. ¿Comprendes?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bart wriggled into a more comfortable position, leaning into Jaime’s side. “Seriously though, if you’re not gonna eat that candy bar...”

Jaime unhooked his arm and shoved Bart away with a laugh.

+

“You really telling me you know how to dewinterize a house?” Jaime crossed his arms, skeptical.

“Pfft,” Bart waved a hand dismissively. “All I have to do is open the taps and reconnect the power, how hard could it be?”

“ _Yeah,_ two words, ese,” Jaime counted them off on his fingers. “Burst. Pipes.”

“Only if they’re frozen,” Bart argued. “Which, if the people who own the place did things right, they won’t be!”

“We could still end up flooding the place by accident,” Jaime said. “And even if we do it right, I don’t know how to reverse it so that it’s _re-_ winterized again.”

“Who cares about _that_?” Bart scoffed. “The League will cover the expenses if we break anything or rack up their utility bills or whatever.”

“It’s still _rude_ ,” Jaime said. Bart's lips tugged up.

“Blue, buddy, it’s a _survival_ situation,” Bart gestured to the blizzard. “I don’t think the owners will care, if they ever even come back.”

Jaime flushed a little but opened his mouth to keep arguing anyway.

“—Also,” Bart cut him off. “Do you really want to have to pee outside in _that?_ Because no running water means no indoor plumbing, which trust me is _not crash._ ”

“It’s _two days_ ,” Jaime said stubbornly. Bart shot a flat look at him. “Look, _if_ we’re stuck here longer than that for some reason, then fine. We can give it a try. If not though, I’d rather leave this place the same way we found it. Fair?”

“ _O_ -kay,” Bart held up his hands. “But don’t come crying to me when you have to freeze your tushy off just to take a—”

“I _get_ it,” Jaime groaned. “Don’t be gross.”

Bart shrugged. “Hey, these are the things you have to think about when you’re out in ~the wild~” he spread his arms open wide, wiggling his fingers ominously. Jaime rolled his eyes.

“I’d rather you put your brainpower towards fixing our comms situation, ¿sabes?” Jaime poked Bart’s forehead.

“Valid point,” Bart allowed, bringing a hand to his chin in thought. “I wonder if they have a radio I could tinker with. I might be able to hook one of our comms up to get a better signal somehow.”

 _“If the heroes are within range, projecting the correct frequency via sonic attack could attract their attention,”_ Khaji added.

“If you could, then Khaji says we could use the sonic cannon as a distress signal on top of that, once we think the Team is close enough by to pick up on it.”

Bart grinned. “Sounds crash. And I mean, hey, if not then Khaji could track down the plane’s black box right? Even if we can’t wait there for long, we might be able to at least leave a note for them to come find us here.”

“If _we_ can even find our way back after,” Jaime said. “It’s not a bad idea, but let’s maybe not try to do that in the dark, sí?

Bart shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Hanging by a warm fire? Crash. Stakeout in a blizzard? _Less_ crash.”

Jaime sighed, rubbing his neck again. “Yeah, seconded. Plus, I’m wiped. We should see if there’s enough extra bottled water to clean you up with and then get some shut eye while we can.”

“Hey!” Bart put his hands on his hips. “Why just me?”

“Well _both_ of us, but _I’m_ not the one who’s got blood blending into my hair.” Jaime pointed out, rubbing a chunk of the matted strands between his armored fingers. Bart shrugged, ears red.

“Hey, at least it’s not _my_ blood,” he said, then paused. “Uh, is it?”

“Yeah, no,” Jaime agreed hurriedly. “Don’t worry, Khaji already checked.”

+

Jaime rapped on the bathroom door with impatience.

“Bart, vamonos! It’s late.”

“I’m going, yeesh. Stop mom-ing me.”

Jaime leaned his back against the doorframe. _Ay por dios_. He swore Bart was worse than his sister sometimes. What was there to even _do_ in there? It never took Bart more than three seconds to do _anything._

When Bart did emerge, dressed down to the one-piece black undersuit with his KF uniform hanging over his arm, his hair was sopping. At least, for all of three seconds before he started shaking his head and sent all the water droplets flying into Jaime’s face.

“ _Dude!”_ Jaime threw an arm up in defense. Bart laughed and speedster-squeezed him.

“Night, Blue!”

In the next breath, Bart scooped up a blanket and pillow from the bed and disappeared. Jaime stared out the open door in confusion, then followed him out.

Bart had dumped the bedding on one side of the couch and was crouched down to prod a bit more at the fire. Jaime walked up next to him.

“What are you doing?”

“Just double checking it,” Bart said, straightening up. “It should burn long enough to keep us warm as we’re falling asleep, but still.”

“Not _that_ ,” Jaime dismissed like it was obvious, gesturing at the couch. “That.”

Bart brushed the bits of wood off his hands, then turned to him, his brows knitting.

“The couch?” Bart glanced at it, then at Jaime again. “Thought you said nothing was wrong with it.”

“There _is_ nothing wrong with it,” Jaime said. “I meant why are you bringing stuff over like you’re gonna sleep out here?”

“Where else would I sleep?”

Jaime looked at him funny. “Where do you think?”

Bart scrunched his face at him. “I’m not making _you_ take the couch, dude. Your back gets moded as it is.”

Jaime’s brows furrowed further. “Well no shit, I don’t want the couch either.”

Bart's exasperation disappeared as he blinked, at a loss. “So, what then? You think the floor would be better?” 

“What? No,” Jaime dismissed again. “Why would we split up? It’s a queen-size mattress. Unless you plan to starfish out on it, we’ll both fit.”

“Oh,” Bart squeaked, then cleared his throat. “Nahreallythat’sokay. I’d feel bad if I kept you up.”

Jaime raised a brow in amusement. “Since _when?_ ”

Jaime had a guest room at his house. It was mainly used by family, but Tye had stayed there a lot too, once he and Jaime had started to think of themselves as too old to sleep in the same bed. In all the million times Bart had slept over though, he’d never _once_ used it. Even if it meant sleeping on an air mattress, Bart always preferred staying close to Jaime.

Bart opened his mouth and closed it again, as if unable to come up with a convincing argument. Then, even stranger, he glanced away and pushed his hair out of his face.

What was with him all of a sudden?

“What?” Bart asked self-consciously under Jaime’s stare. Jaime shook his head, perplexed.

“Did you get body-snatched while you were in the bathroom or something?” he joked. “Is that what was taking so long in there?”

“ _What?_ ” Bart asked, the word a burst-out laugh.

Jaime tsked, squishing Bart’s face between his thumb and forefinger and making a show of peering at him with suspicion. “Nuh uh, don’t give me that. You really think I can't tell?”

“ _What_ are you even talking about right now?” Bart laughed, trying to tug Jaime’s hand away with both of his.

“ _You_. You’re acting suspicious.”

“By doing _what?_ ” Bart said indignantly, prying Jaime’s fingers away. “I’m trying to sleep!”

“Yeah, _on the couch_ ,” Jaime rolled his eyes, gesturing again.

“How is that suspicious?”

“Because the real Bart is half-barnacle,” Jaime said matter-of-factly. “Normally he goes out of his way to find an excuse like this to get me to cuddle him.”

Bart spluttered. “I do not!”

“Well, _evidentemente_ , ese,” Jaime said as if Bart was being slow on the uptake, “that’s ‘cause you’re the _fake_.”

Bart grabbed the pillow he’d brought to the couch and whacked him. Jaime caught hold of it with a grin.

It probably shouldn’t bring him so much satisfaction, teasing Bart until he got annoyed enough to pout at him like that. Bart existed to pester Jaime though, so as far as he was concerned, he’d earned the right to balance the scales every now and again.

“I do _not_.” Bart repeated, ears red at the tips as he folded his arms.

Jaime smirked fondly at him. “Yes you do. You haven’t left me alone since the day I met you.”

The red on Bart’s ears spread to his cheeks, his narrowed eyes an almost perfect imitation of Annoyed Tim. Jaime shook his head again.

“Come on,” he said, scooping up Bart’s blanket and heading back toward the bedroom. “Quit being weird or I’m letting Khaji scan you.”

Bart dragged his feet but followed him. Both his pout and the red on his ears lingered even after they’d finished putting the sheets on the bed. Then he made a show of lying down on the edge of it with his back to Jaime, about as far away as he could.

Jaime couldn’t help but feel a little exasperated by that. Bart had a big personality, sure, but he wasn’t usually _dramatic_. He lifted up onto one elbow, reaching across the distance to nudge him.

“Hey,” he murmured. “You know I’m only teasing you, guepardo. Clearly I don’t _mind_.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bart waved Jaime’s hand away with a sleepy mumble. “Go t’sleep already.”

Jaime studied Bart carefully. His gut still insisted that something was off, even if he wasn’t sure how to explain it. Well, other than that he _knew_ Bart, and for whatever reason, it felt like he was acting particularly _un-Bart-ish_.

“Okay. Goodnight.” 

“Night, Jaime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> flacucho - thin/scrawny  
> ¿sabes? - you know?  
> evidentemente - obviously
> 
> I live for oblivious Jaime, can you tell? (Also, yes, Jaime IS the mom friend, change my mind).
> 
> Side note: I left the chap count a ? for now but I'm expecting about 3-5 around this length. If it's not complete by the end of August YELL AT ME, I need to actually finish the things I start in a timely manner FOR ONCE IN MY DUMB LIFE (unlike my other ongoing DC WIPs, which I may or may not be working on until I die, it's fine).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I really have Ivy proofread most of my Spanish for this fic even tho this is literally _her gift?_  
>  Maybe so. (Listen I'd be lost w/o her okay? It's just the way it goes).
> 
> Anyhow, a thousand thank yous to [pootoyoutoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potooyoutoo) and [CasualThursday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualThursday) for being the best editors as always <3
> 
> Enjoy these two continuing to be idiots.

Jaime woke up _cold_ , the cabin bedroom filled with weak, grey light.

Sensing Jaime’s change in alertness, Khaji brought the armor over him like some sort of skin-tight, weighted blanket, warming him instantly. Grateful, Jaime closed his eyes again.

 _“Arise, Jaime Reyes,”_ Khaji prodded. _“It is already 8:30AM.”_

Jaime flipped over, resisting a groan. Clearly he wasn’t in the middle of being saved, and they hadn’t gone to bed until who even knew what time the night before, so _why_ would he—

Wait.

Jaime squinted his eyes open blearily, searching for the boy-shaped lump that _should_ have been on the other side of the mattress. There wasn’t one.

Jaime was alone.

He sat up in a panic, casting his gaze around the rest of the room.

Where was Bart? Why hadn’t he woken him—

 _“The Bart Allen is unharmed,”_ Khaji reassured. _“I sense his heat signature in the other room.”_

Oh. Jaime let out a breath, slumping back against the headboard. Right, okay. Good. Bart typically woke up before him anyway.

Head still fuzzy with drowsiness, he fought the urge to slide back down under the covers and bury his face in his pillow. Even though he very much wanted another hour or two of shut eye, Khaji was right. They were _supposed_ to be figuring out a way out of here. He shouldn’t make Bart do that by himself.

With a groan, he dragged himself to the bathroom.

He grabbed a water bottle from the stack they’d left by the sink and rinsed out his mouth, then splashed his hair and face. By the time he was done, he did feel _slightly_ more human. A chilly, damp, and groggy human, but a clean-ish one, at least.

Bart was sitting at the tiny kitchen table. Jaime could see him as soon as he shuffled out the door into the hall. A blanket was draped haphazardly over his shoulders, half of it falling off onto his chair, and he was fiddling with something, one leg tucked under him while the other knee bounced.

When Jaime was halfway to him, Bart’s head turned, his eyes bright in contrast to the pale, dreary morning as his lips flicked up into a smile. Despite Khaji’s reassurances, it made Jaime feel better to see him with his own eyes.

“Morning,” Bart greeted as Jaime reached him, far more chipper than was warranted by the current position of the sun.

Jaime acknowledged him with a half-conscious grunt, plopping into the chair opposite him on the other side of the table. As soon as he did, Bart’s knee stopped bouncing. A bad sign. That meant all his energy was about to be redirected into—

 _“So,_ do you want the good news or good news?”

_And, there he goes._

“—Because one: I found a radio, and two: the storm's supposed to clear up tomorrow in the super early morning—" Bart launched into conversation.

Jaime leaned on the table with a quiet noise of resignation and buried his face in his sleeves.

He had yet to decide if it was more of a blessing or a curse that Bart was a, “capital ‘M,’ Morning Person.” As far as Jaime was concerned, the hours between 5 and 9AM were an unholy invention, and if he had his way, he’d sleep in every day until noon. Bart, on the other hand, was up with the sunrise most days, and was his usual Energizer Bunny self the moment his feet hit the floor.

With a strong cup of coffee in front of him and his sister as a distracting buffer for Bart to dote on, Jaime didn’t mind Bart in the morning. In the absence of both though, Jaime now _really_ regretted not staying in bed for twenty more minutes.

Oh well. At least it was good to see that whatever funk Bart had been in the night before seemed to be gone. He was still babbling away (something about needing Jaime to help him, maybe?) but Jaime had tuned him out, trusting that Khaji could sum it up for him later.

Unfortunately, Bart noticed.

“ _Blueee,_ hello?" Bart poked Jaime’s forehead through his hoodie, sounding amused. "Are you even listening?”

It wasn’t worth pretending otherwise, so Jaime shook his head.

“S'too early for you, correcaminos,” he said in his defense, the words muffled against his arms.

Rather than dissuading him, that only made Bart laugh.

“Wow, and here I was about to offer to share my breakfast with you, too,” he said, letting out a wounded sigh.

Jaime raised his head in confusion. Not that he’d really been looking, but he hadn’t noticed any food on the table when he’d sat down. Sure enough, he eyed the empty space in front of Bart with a questioning look.

Bart pointed behind him into the kitchen. “It's not ready yet, but should be in like fifteen more minutes.”

Jaime glanced over his shoulder. There were _pots_ on the stovetop.

And here he'd thought the smell of rice and beans was some sort of wishful-thinking hallucination.

“You’re cooking?”

Even if he were fully awake he wasn’t sure he’d be able to comprehend this new fact. Seriously, _Bart Allen,_ resident garbage disposal and fast food extraordinaire, cooking _real_ food? In a kitchen? By _himself?_

Taking one look at Jaime’s undoubtedly incredulous expression, Bart started laughing again.

“Always the tone of surprise with you,” he chided with a teasing grin, wagging a thin, freckled finger in Jaime’s face. Jaime rolled his eyes and grabbed it.

“Well, _yeah,”_ Jaime tsked, trying to make Bart poke himself in the cheek. “All this time I coulda had you making your own food instead of mooching off me? Unbelievable.”

Bart leaned out of the way, grinning wider.

“It tastes better off your plate!” he said, like that explained everything. Jaime snorted, then leaned back in his seat with a yawn.

He supposed nothing about Bart should surprise him at this point. Every time Jaime thought he’d learned everything about him, he was proven wrong time and time again.

Bart had been putting a lot of valuable survival skills that Jaime hadn’t known were in his repertoire to use ever since they’d arrived here, actually. And it wasn’t like he’d signed up for the _Boy Scouts_ since coming to the past. Had Bart learned all this stuff back when he was in the moded future? Not as preparation for what-if scenarios, but out of day-to-day necessity?

Jaime’s heart twisted.

Yeah, no. Way too early in the morning to be thinking about that.

“Well, thanks for doing that,” he said gratefully, rubbing the last bits of sleep from his face. “The jam down there’s not bad but I wasn’t looking forward to another jar being my only option.”

Bart huffed a humorless snort. “Nope, saving all those for me.”

He didn’t sound at all enthused about that prospect and Jaime didn't blame him. Bart needed an _insane_ amount of calories every day, and without supplements that was going to be a nightmare.

“What’d you say you needed my help with again?” Jaime asked, paying attention this time. Bart pointed at the radio.

“It’ll take most of the day, but I should be able to Frankenstein our comms and the radio together so the comms will have an easier time picking up a long-range signal,” he explained. “I may need you to help me reweld some stuff or keep wires straight as I’m working though.”

 _“Be warned, Jaime Reyes,”_ Khaji clacked, now that Jaime was more awake, _“Traversing the storm in its current state is still extremely ill-advised.”_

“Right. Sure,” Jaime replied to them both, glancing across the cabin to one of the front windows. Khaji was right, the storm looked even worse than the day before. “I don’t think we should bother with the black box then,” he said to Bart.

Bart shrugged. “I mean, it wouldn’t _hurt._ The Team will go back there for sure. Use it as a starting point to create a radius as they’re searching for us and all that.”

“They won’t _need_ a radius if we can contact them,” Jaime argued. “Besides, look how hard it’s snowing. We won’t be able to see our hands in front of our faces. Why risk using up your energy, _and_ maybe running into bad guys if they’re checking out the crash, _and_ not finding our way back?”

“Alright,” Bart agreed with another half-shrug. “Not eager to fight in the snow anyway. Well—” he amended, mischief gleaming in his eyes, “—unless we get bored later. I bet I could kick your butt in a snowball fight, even in a blizzard.”

Jaime smiled, resisting another eye roll. “Yeah, first of all, we are _not_ doing that, and second of all, you _wish.”_

+

Did Jaime know the first thing about whatever electronic, mechanical, sorcery Bart was doing with the radio? _Absolutamente no_ _._ But he didn’t need to understand it. He just needed to watch Bart fuss with wires and circuits and do as he was told.

“Red one,” Bart pointed to a thin wire inside the radio. Jaime held the end of it up for his inspection.

He’d moved his chair around closer to make it easier to reach, leaning his chin on his hand with an air of boredom as he tracked the movements of Bart’s fingers.

“Okay, bring that here,” Bart gestured, “and then I’ll hook it up to this.”

Jaime tilted the wire down toward the spot Bart had indicated.

“Not _there,”_ Bart tutted, pointing again. “Right here.”

“That _is_ where I was putting it.”

“Was not. I said _here.”_ Bart brought his finger closer to the circuit, as if that clarified anything.

 _“Ay dios,_ just move my hand where you want it, then,” Jaime complained. “I don’t see a difference.”

 _“Or,_ you could just follow directions,” Bart teased. Jaime kicked him. Well, tried to. Bart’s reflexes were too good.

“Y’know, this might be the longest I’ve ever seen you not use superspeed,” he mused as Bart maneuvered Jaime’s hand into place.

For the first half hour, Bart had done nothing but assess what he was working with. After that, Jaime was surprised to see Bart stick to normal speed as he started disassembling, losing himself in the work and occasionally asking Jaime to hold something or hand him various parts.

“Hm?” Bart looked up, distracted. “Oh, yeah. Old habits I guess. Green one again, please?”

A question hovered on Jaime’s tongue, but he bit it back.

He knew it was a delicate balance with Bart. Sometimes he could coax a little more info out of him when he tossed out comments like that, but for the most part there was no out-stubborning him when he didn’t want to share. Take Bart’s techy prowess. It had taken over a year and some change before Bart admitted to Jaime that he’d built the majority of his time machine himself. This kind of thing was a walk in the park in comparison, but in either case, Jaime had no idea _how_ Bart had picked up those skills, or under what circumstances. Just that he’d acquired them long before coming to the past.

He’d learned to accept though that if Bart was willing to elaborate, he did so without Jaime having to ask him. If he left it vague instead, it was almost always for the same reason: _Don’t ask me questions you don’t want to know the answer to, Blue._

Not that refraining from asking ever stopped his morbid curiosity from trying to peer down that rabbit hole anyway.

As though reading his mind, Bart pointedly raised his eyes to Jaime’s and held them. Jaime wasn’t sure what it said about them that in that one glance, he could hear an entire three minute lecture play itself out in Bart’s voice in his head.

Bart had done the work of fixing what he could for everyone else’s future, but it wasn’t possible for Jaime to retroactively change Bart’s past. Bart was stuck with the series of events that got him here no matter what Jaime did now, and as much as Jaime hated it, he had to make his peace with that.

“Probably the smart thing to do anyway,” Jaime said, letting the subject close with a playful shake of Bart’s wrist. “Better to save your energy.”

“Yeah, yeah, gotta do less and eat more, I know,” Bart shook him off, waving away his concern. “Either way, I should still be able to get this done today. Now keep your hands to yourself and let me focus.”

Jaime’s lips twitched. “What, are you _me,_ now?”

Bart stuck his tongue out at him.

+

It wasn’t even lunchtime yet but already Jaime was well and truly bored.

As Bart blew through an unreasonable amount of rice for ‘second breakfast,’ Jaime plunked his chair behind him and started weaving tiny braids into his hair. Bart tilted his head back with an amused look.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, upside down.

“Practicing,” Jaime said. “My sister’s been complaining that you do this better than me.” Bart snorted, setting down the food he'd been eating straight from the pan.

“My hair’s not even long enough!” he complained, shaking his head to knock Jaime’s hands away.

Jaime huffed, leaning his crossed arms against the back of Bart’s shoulders instead and resting his chin on his wrists. “But I’m _bored,”_ he said in his best Bart impression. Bart scoffed and pushed Jaime’s face away.

“Okay, y’know what?” Bart gestured between them as he got to his feet. “This? The whole role reversal thing we’ve got going on right now? Not crash.”

Jaime’s lips quirked, following him. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I bothering you?” He poked at Bart’s sides, getting up in his space. Bart squirmed, ticklish.

_“Blue—”_

“—Are you trying to get stuff done instead of entertaining me?”

“Oh my god—” Bart flushed, snatching Jaime’s wrists and trying to still him as Jaime backed him toward the counter.

“Can’t _imagine_ what that’s like—” Jaime broke his hold, trying not to laugh.

“I _get_ it,” Bart whined, leaning away. “Don’t be a dick.”

Jaime snorted, trying to scoop him up around the middle. Instead, his stomach lurched as he nearly lost his balance, arms closing around empty air.

When he turned, Bart was already behind him. Too fast for him, as usual.

Jaime expected Bart to laugh at him for stumbling. To tease back with another retort, or banish him to the couch or something, the way Jaime would if Bart were the one bugging him. Instead, Bart went straight back to his chair again, head ducked as he picked up where he’d left off.

A rush of awkwardness lurched through him, his stomach bottoming out as if he’d accidentally skipped a step on the way down the stairs.

He’d just been kidding around, but it felt like maybe he’d messed up somehow. Much like the night before, Bart was pretty pointedly putting distance between them.

He’d always thought of Bart as being pretty self-aware, but maybe he was wrong. Or maybe being called out was what made him uncomfortable. Although, it wasn’t like Jaime had ever been shy _before_ about calling Bart a nuisance. Normally Bart took a weird pride in that, stepping _up_ his level of obnoxiousness when complained about, and getting way more up in Jaime’s space than Jaime had just been in his.

“KF?”

“Mm?” Bart answered without turning. He _sounded_ normal, but that didn’t always mean much when it came to him.

Jaime hesitated, caught between a question and an apology, even if he wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing _for._

“You alright?” he settled on.

Bart squinted at his comm, holding it up to examine it closer in the low light, then turned his head to Jaime. “Hm? Oh, yeah, sorry. Thought of something. Could you come hold this again?”

A little more unsure than before, Jaime took a seat at the table again and did as Bart asked. Part of him wanted to take that excuse at face value. His gut, however, said otherwise.

+

Jaime was starting to feel a little crazy. He _genuinely_ couldn’t tell if he was imagining things, or if something was still off with Bart.

Maybe Bart _was_ just hyper-focused, like he’d claimed. After all, he’d already been working for five hours straight, more or less, and had yet to show any sign of slowing or fatigue. He was twitchy in a way Jaime hadn’t seen him in ages though, and he kept doing that thing. Skirting away from Jaime, but in a way that made it seem like he didn’t want him to notice.

It figured that the _one_ time Bart gave him something bordering on a _normal amount of space_ Jaime couldn’t even enjoy the luxury. Something about it was too weird and wrong, setting off very off-putting alarm bells in the back of Jaime’s brain.

His second thought was that maybe the allusion, however brief, to Bart’s past had put him in a mood or something. Jaime would definitely understand that. This wasn’t exactly a cozy winter vacation after all. The no power, and no plumbing, and nothing to do except think about the less-than-great circumstances they’d found themselves in? Not conducive to a happy _anybody,_ let alone a speedster suddenly forced to remember a time in his life he’d rather forget.

Regardless of why, nothing Jaime did seemed to be making Bart feel better. When he tried to hug him, Bart squirmed away. When he suggested they spar, figuring they could work off some of the stress and provide _some_ kind of catharsis for whatever was going on with Bart, he merely raised a brow and reminded Jaime that _‘I thought your whole point was that I should be saving my energy.’_ Which, okay, but still. It wasn’t like he _had_ to use his powers for that.

Then he thought maybe Bart was just hangry? Except, it wasn’t that Bart was being _irritable_ per se, just less…

Honestly, he didn’t have a word for it. Just less _Bart-ish,_ again.

Currently, said speedster was standing in the kitchen shoveling more jam into his mouth with a spoon. Jaime kept side-eyeing him from where he was doing pull-ups on the door frame, midway through the workout he _would have_ had to do if they were back home, as he tried to put his finger on it. 

_“The Bart Allen’s bio scans indicate—”_ Khaji piped up.

 _“—Ey, ey, no! ¡Detente!_ _”_ Jaime interrupted. _“None of that."_ It occurred to him that maybe it was weird that the voice in his head came out as a strained huff, as if his _brain_ was in any way affected by what his shaky arms and abs were doing. _"How many times have we talked about this? No scanning my friends when we’re off mission!”_

_“Your mission is still ongoing, Jaime Reyes.”_

Jaime resisted an eye roll, tucking his chin above the wood. _“Still. It’s an invasion of privacy. If there is something wrong, I’d rather let Bart tell me himself.”_

It was probably nothing any—

_“—Fuck!”_

Something metal clattered to the floor, Bart’s shout turning to an aggravated string of sped up curses.

Jaime nearly landed on his ass, barely catching himself in a low crouch as he fell in surprise to the floor. He scrambled upright, whirling around.

“Bart? ¿Qué pasó? You okay?” He rounded into the kitchen in concern. Bart’s face was scrunched in pain and he was leaning over, clutching at his leg.

“Yeah…” Bart said, sounding more annoyed than pained already. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Knife just slipped.”

 _Slipped_ was a generous word for it. There was a bloody _gash_ in Bart’s thigh, the knife having slashed straight through the thin undersuit on its way to the ground, by the looks of it. Jaime glanced at the counter where the line of jam jars were set up. Bart had already eaten his way through two and it looked like he’d been trying to pry open the third one using the same method that Jaime had the night before.

“Jesus, Kid,” Jaime muttered. “Quítate eso y siéntate, I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

Bart’s head shot up. “What?”

Jaime shook himself mentally. “Sorry, I meant ‘take that off and sit.’ That’s a deep cut, but I’m still gonna need to clean it fast before it heals over.”

“No, I know, I understood you. But—” Bart said, stance tense.

“What?” Jaime said, already walking away.

“It’s gonna heal in like three minutes,” Bart called after him.

“Sí, that’s my whole point,” Jaime called back from the bathroom, nabbing the first aid kit. When he got back Bart hadn’t moved an inch.

“Guepardo, rápido.” He gestured in annoyance. “You don’t have time to be a baby about this.”

“But it’s _cold,”_ Bart pouted.

“And you’re _bleeding,”_ Jaime shot back, popping the kit open and snapping his fingers in the direction of the kitchen chair. “Ahora mismo.”

Bart huffed but did as he was told, stripping down to his boxer briefs and sitting gingerly on the edge of the chair. Seeing him shiver, Jaime grabbed the sweatshirt he’d discarded when he started his work out and handed it over. Bart tugged it over his head, careful not to get any blood on it.

“You could have asked me to open the jar for you,” Jaime tsked, kneeling in front of him and treating the wound with quick, practiced ease. “Now you’re gonna have to eat even more to make up for all the energy your healing factor’s using up.”

“At least there’s a doctor in the house,” Bart joked, his tone forced as he stared stiffly in the direction of the fire. Jaime huffed a humorless snort.

“Yeah, I’m only in my second year of _undergrad,_ correcaminos. Long way to go.”

Bart didn’t answer, gaze fixed somewhere off to the side as the cold air raised goosebumps across his pale skin. The cut was quite literally healing before Jaime’s eyes, but if anything Bart was getting more tense with each passing second. There was a strange look on his face, and it took Jaime a few seconds to place it.

Bart wasn’t in pain. He was straight up _uncomfortable._

Jaime’s brows knitted. Okay, so maybe he _wasn’t_ crazy. Something was off. No matter how much he wracked his brain though, he could not think of anything that he was doing differently that might be causing it.

This in particular was a pretty normal occurrence for them. Bart was careless with his healing factor and Jaime was careful with not letting him get away with it. It was part of what made them a good team, even if it did drive Jaime up the wall. Bart was used to changing clothes around him, too, and was definitely used to Jaime touching him. In general, the kid was typically _shameless,_ not shy.

Jaime’s stare must have been a little too intense because Bart’s eyes flit back to his, a blush creeping across his cheeks under the attention.

“What?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Jaime said, frustrated.

“Nothing,” Bart shrugged. “It just stings a bit.”

Jaime studied him harder, perplexed.

Bart’s reason for not wanting to talk was an issue he could deal with later—sometimes he just got like that. The bigger annoyance was that Jaime was having such a hard time puzzling the reason out himself. There had to be _some_ common thread to all the things that were making Bart upset.

 _“Okay, fine.”_ Jaime thought at Khaji Da. _“No scanning, but what am I missing here?”_

 _“The Bart Allen has spent an above average duration outside his usual radius of preferred distance,”_ Khaji reported. _“He has also initiated physical contact 203% less often than average.”_

So, Bart was hugging him less. _That_ was the bug’s great insight?

Jaime waited for more, but apparently Khaji wasn’t in a forthcoming mood today either. He resisted another eye roll. Ay dios, he’d already figured _that_ much out! How was that supposed to—

Jaime paused, then he swore a literal light bulb went off above his head.

“Does it really bother you that much?” he asked Bart, incredulous.

“Does what bother me?”

“What I said yesterday.”

Bart cocked a brow, turning back to him. If the question caught him off guard, it didn’t show.

“No? Why would it?” Bart asked.

His tone was smoother than butter, and had the perfect sprinkle of curiosity to boot.

It felt like a slap to the face.

He didn’t even _need_ Khaji’s voice in his head to tell Bart was flat out lying to his face. He was controlling his tone and expression too perfectly, his face a blank mask that was seamless enough to outclass one of the _bats._

What the actual hell?

“Please don’t pull that with me,” Jaime snapped, hurt.

“Pull _what_ with you?”

Jaime gestured at Bart’s face. _“That.”_

“Oh, crash, thanks, that was _much_ more specific—”

“You _know_ what I’m talking about.”

“I really don’t.”

Jaime opened his mouth to keep arguing.

 _“Yeesh,_ Jaime, I’m _fine,”_ Bart cut him off with a whine. “I mean, y’know, not about the whole being stuck alone in the wilderness without backup or enough food and a bleeding leg thing, but besides that.”

Jaime clenched his jaw shut, a tangle of hurt and frustration smarting in his chest.

Dios, he did _not_ understand how sometimes, even with half a country separating them, he could feel so close to Bart, and other times Bart could be right there next to him but feel a million miles away.

“Fine,” he said, low, in a tone that made it clear that it wasn’t, then finished bandaging him and cleaned up the mess.

+

It bothered him all afternoon, despite trying to put the conversation out of his mind.

Maybe it really wasn’t a big deal. Maybe it was the general situation making Jaime stay so irritable over something so small. Either way, he couldn’t shake how much it annoyed him that Bart was hiding something from him. Since when did they hide _anything_ from each other anymore? They couldn’t _afford_ to when they were on missions, and even in their normal lives he’d thought they were way past that.

He wasn’t even doing anything! And since _when_ did Bart give a shit about his level of touchiness, or whatever, anyway?

It didn’t help that there wasn’t much for him to do now but hang around and wait to see if Bart would need his help with the radio again. Sullen and bored, he sat wedged into the corner of the couch with his arms crossed, his back to where Bart was tinkering at the kitchen table.

The longer Jaime stewed in that unspoken tension, the more it began to fill every corner of the small cabin, thick and oppressive. Bart made no comment beyond shooting the occasional furtive look at the back of Jaime’s head from across the room. 

After a while though, Bart reached a breaking point, tipping his head back and rolling it in Jaime’s direction with a punched-out sigh.

 _“Blue,_ seriously," he griped as Jaime crouched by the hearth to put another log on the fire. “I’m trying to do delicate work here, and it’s hard for me to focus when you’re being all sulky.”

Annoyance flared in Jaime's chest.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have to _sulk_ if you just talked to me,” he shot back as he stood, crossing his arms as he turned toward him.

Bart let out a noise that fell somewhere between a whine and a groan.

“There’s nothing to talk about!" he insisted, arms flailing out to the sides in agitation. “Do you not see the feedback loop here? You thought I was annoyed when I wasn’t, but now I actually _am_ annoyed because you won’t let it go, so now we’re going in circles.”

The words stung in the center of Jaime’s chest, churning the hurt in his stomach.

Now that he knew to look for it, Jaime could spot the lie a mile away in the slight pinch of Bart’s mouth, Bart’s dramatic gesturing meant to distract Jaime from scrutinizing his face for precisely that kind of detail.

“Small problem with that,” Jaime snapped, voice simmering, “I _know_ you were lying earlier, Khaji told me. And now you’re lying _more_ to get out of it!”

Bart met Jaime’s glare with an unreadable look, his expression reverting back to something dangerously neutral.

Most of the time when Bart dug his heels in like this, Jaime didn’t take such a direct approach to wringing the truth out of him. Then again, Bart tended to only be this cagey about things he had a good reason to hide. Jaime couldn’t imagine that whatever _this_ was had anything to do with the future however, considering the one thing connecting all these little ‘off’ moments didn’t seem to be _Blue Beetle,_ but Jaime himself.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Jaime,” Bart repeated, his tone seamless even though his tense posture radiated a very clear "drop it" as he got to his feet and scooped the debris from the table into the trash can.

Jaime scowled, for once refusing to let it slide.

“Bullshit,” he argued, “you’ve been acting weird all day. I don’t get what it is about what I said that’s bothering you so much, but I can’t _fix_ it if you won’t talk to me!”

“—It’s not about that!” Bart snapped, whirling to face him.

 _“What_ then?" Jaime pleaded. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

Bart tossed his hands up with a loud, irritated groan. Exasperated, Jaime opened his mouth to snap something else at him—

—and got a mouthful of _lightning_ instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _Correcaminos_ \- Roadrunner (Ivy came up with that one & it's so cute in her fics that I couldn't help but start using it too)  
>  _Absolutamente no_ \- Absolutely not  
>  _¡Detente!_ \- Stop it!  
>  _¿Que pasó?_ \- What happened?  
>  _Guepardo_ \- Cheetah  
>  _Rápido_ \- Quick  
>  _Ahora mismo_ \- Right now
> 
> Ohhey. Guess what?  
> The whole rest of the fic is drafted. Soooo, depending on how fast I edit, I should be able to post the whole thing this week. Feels good to stick to a deadline for once, not gonna lie!
> 
> Always happy to chat in comments w you, they make my week <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ty, ty, [CasualThursday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualThursday) for your edits & love.
> 
> ~Let's back, back, back, back it up~

**9 Hours Earlier**

Bart jolted awake at the tail end of an unpleasant dream, shooting upright. Groggy and confused, he squinted a look around the dark room.

The ground beneath him was soft, and blankets were pooled in his lap, covering his legs. His heart slowed, recognizing the mattress for what it was— _a bed, not a cell_ —then all at once everything clicked into place, recollections of the previous day returning to him in sleepy flashes.

His relief gave way to a shiver as the chill of the cabin air settled over his exposed face. Grumbling, he laid back down and rolled onto his side, pulling the blanket up to his neck.

There was a bit of resistance as he attempted to yank the covers higher, but his brain was too bogged down with sleep to think much of it.

He nestled deeper into his pillow, ready to let sleep pull him back under—

Then felt a warm, steady exhale ghost across his face.

Bart’s heart jolted again even harder, the single most _important_ detail he’d forgotten rocking through him.

He jerked his head back, eyes flying open.

Jaime was lying on his stomach with his face turned toward Bart, back rising and falling gently as he slept. There wasn’t enough light for Bart to see much more than the general outline of his frame, but he could feel the warmth radiating from Jaime’s body, mere inches away.

Heat shot across the underside of Bart’s ribs and burned over his cheekbones. He barely dared to breathe in Jaime’s direction, even though all his previous squirming hadn’t appeared to rouse him in the slightest.

Jaime’s elbows were hooked loosely up around his pillow. His soft breaths smelled like sleep. Just like the night before, Bart felt split in two from how much his body _ached_ to wriggle into that space under Jaime’s arm and curl into his side, while his self-preservation (or at least, what was left of it) scolded him for so much as thinking about it.

He wished he could say that it was the Blue Beetle on Jaime’s back that was the cause of said self-preservation instinct yelling at him. _That_ fear had mostly quieted a long time ago though, once Bart had started to feel confident that his work in the past—in the _new present,_ he corrected himself—seemed like it was going to stick. Khaji Da was as off-mode as he had been since Zatanna’s cleansing, and while the scarab was annoying sometimes, according to Jaime, he hadn’t tried anything to make Bart suspicious.

What scared Bart now was significantly more stupid. Maybe the _most_ stupid. The most moded thing _ever_ in a situation like _this_.

He could still remember the exact way Tim had smirked at him over the rim of his cappuccino as Bart had admitted it.

“ _Only_ you _would come back in time to stop a bad guy and fall in love with him instead,_ ” he'd said in amusement, walking side by side with Bart along a busy street in Central City during Bart’s first autumn in the past.

 _“I didn’t do it on purpose!”_ Bart had whined, pouting. _“Y’know, the falling for him part, not the time travel. That I_ did _do on purpose, obviously.”_

 _“So, how’re you going to tell him?”_ Tim sipped.

“ _Tell him?”_ Bart had scoffed. _“What, so he can fly off and never want to talk to me again, just like that?”_ he’d asked with a snap of his fingers. _“Noooo, thank you, I’m good._ So _not crash.”_

He’d lost track of how many times he’d repeated that to himself over the years since then. Jaime’s friendship meant too much to him. There was _no way_ he’d risk ruining one of the most important relationships in his life just because of some stupid crush that he couldn’t seem to stop from coming back over and over again.

Clearly he’d already given away too much as it was, considering Jaime’s little throwaway comment that he’d teased Bart with the night before.

Bart swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut as he reprimanded himself yet again for his lack of self control—for the number of times he’d let himself indulge, just a little, telling himself it was fine, because they were best friends, and Jaime always _let_ him, and never complained.

Apparently the lack of _complaining_ didn’t mean he hadn’t _noticed._

Bart opened his eyes again, taking one last look at Jaime’s peaceful silhouette before slipping out of bed.

He took one of the loose blankets with him, the cabin freezing now that the fire had died down to embers overnight. He busied himself getting that back up and running, grateful for the welcome distraction of having something more useful to do than cringing at himself.

Once the flames were crackling merrily again, Bart grabbed one of the flashlights he and Jaime had discovered the night before and padded to the storage cellar, rooting around the wooden shelves for some rice and dried beans.

Trying to cook anything up the night before had sounded like too much of a hassle, but now he was _hungry_ , and as convenient as it was eating a bunch of tasty jam straight from the jar to get some calories, he should at least _try_ to make something heartier that resembled a proper meal, too.

There was very little in the way of pots and pans in the kitchen, once again giving Bart the impression that this cabin was a work in progress at best. He could make do, though. He’d done more with less before, after all, even if it had been a few years since he’d last had to.

Scrounging around for a box of matches, he stumbled across the portable radio he was hoping to find as well, tucked away on the top shelf of the empty pantry. Pleased, he placed that on the kitchen table then resigned himself to fussing with the stove-top burner.

It wasn't that Bart _disliked_ cooking, it was just that it took _forever._ He could use his powers to do things like make the water heat up faster, but there was no getting around the hour it took to soak the dried beans, or the time it took for the rice to cook, or yada, yada, yada.

Once he had the bulk of the process underway at least, he plunked down on one of the rickety chairs and turned a small knob on the radio.

It crackled to life immediately.

Searching through the white noise and bits of staticky, broken up singing, he landed on a promising station.

“— _highs of 15 with a whopping negative 20 degree windchill, you’re going to want to bundle up again today, folks. Those of you out by Nastern county should expect to see another 12-18 inches of snowfall today, but that should start clearing up tomorrow in the early hours of the morning and is not predicted to impact your morning commute...”_

 _Good_ , Bart thought. If the storm started clearing up overnight that meant they could expect the team to re-sweep the area throughout the early morning, looking for them.

As he turned the volume down, Jaime finally emerged, walking with a lazy, sleep-heavy gait down the hall towards him. His jeans were creased from sleeping in them and his hood was pulled up, one hand raised to rub at his eye. Bart's chest swelled.

It was unfair how adorable Jaime was while waking up. During the day he carried around so much worry and tension in his body, but sleep (at least _nightmareless_ sleep) knocked that loose. He looked softer this way, more at ease as he moved, like he wasn’t awake enough yet to remember to be self-conscious.

They’d been working on that for a while, him and Cassie. The whole self-confidence thing. As powerful as the scarab made him out in the field, there were a lot of ways it made Jaime skittish in his civilian life, like when it came to his appearance. Being with Traci had done wonders for that for a while, some proof in his mind that it was possible for someone to find him attractive even after finding out (ha, if only he _knew_ ). In the absence of a relationship though, he’d started retreating back into a lot of his old insecurities, no matter how much his friends went out of their way to hype him up. It gave Bart a lot of hope seeing Jaime _this_ way, too sleepy to care. Like that more confident boy was right there beneath the surface, waiting to be coaxed out.

He was also just _so damn cute_ _it hurt,_ with his damp hair poking out the top of his hood and the pillow creases fading from his smooth, brown skin, but that was a separate issue.

Bart fought down the urge to dash over and squeeze him awake, wanting nothing more in the world than to bury his face into the cozy grey fabric of his hoodie and stay there.

“Morning,” he said cheerfully instead.

Jaime didn't answer so much as flop into the chair on the other side of the tiny table with a grumble. Bart expected as much. He was always a big grump first thing in the morning.

 _“So,_ do you want the good news or good news?” he continued brightly. “Because one: I found a radio, and two: the storm's supposed to clear up tomorrow in the super early morning.”

Jaime made another sound from where he’d slumped forward to rest his head on his arms on the table, but it sounded more like a complaint than acknowledgement. Bart fought a smile.

“I'll need your help once I dismantle this thing by the way," he patted the radio. “And by you, I mean Khaji with his precision lasers, because I may need to do more than basic rewiring. I haven’t taken apart one of our own comms before so I’m not totally sure how straightforward it’s going to be.”

This time Jaime said nothing, not even a shrug of his shoulders. Bart cocked his head to the side in amusement, poking Jaime's forehead through the fabric of his hood.

“ _Blueee_ , hello?” he teased. “Are you even listening?”

Jaime shook his head. “S'too early for you, correcaminos.”

Bart laughed.

That was his other favorite thing about half-asleep Jaime. He was like a carbon copy of his baby sister Milagro when he was like this, grogginess bringing out a more stubborn, indulgent version of himself who couldn’t be assed to act like the otherwise polite, generous boy the Reyes’ had raised him to be. There was something oddly satisfying about seeing someone as responsible as Jaime acting out a little, and Bart couldn’t help but find the sassier sides of Jaime amusing.

“Wow, and here I was about to offer to share my breakfast with you, too,” he said with a wounded sigh.

Jaime lifted his head, gaze questioning the empty space in front of Bart. Bart pointed behind him.

“It's not ready yet, but should be in like fifteen more minutes.”

Jaime glanced back at the stovetop, brows furrowing. “You’re cooking?”

He sounded so _stupefied_ by that fact. Bart laughed again.

“Always the tone of surprise with you,” he wagged a finger at him. Jaime rolled his eyes, grabbing it.

Jaime was _always_ doing that, rolling his eyes at him. It was a wonder they hadn’t fallen out of his head yet.

“Well, _yeah._ All this time I coulda had you making your own food instead of mooching off me?” Jaime tsked, aiming Bart’s finger back at his own cheek. “Unbelievable.”

Bart ducked out of the way, grinning wider. “It tastes better off your plate!"

Jaime snorted.

“Well,” he yawned, giving Bart’s hand a slight squeeze before leaning back in his chair, rubbing the last bits of sleep from his face, “thanks for doing that. The jam down there’s not bad but I wasn’t looking forward to another jar being my only option.”

A shot of warmth filled Bart’s chest, the ghost of that pressure lingering on his fingertips.

“Nope, saving all those for me,” he joked.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever _miss_ having an endless supply of blandest protein bars in existence. They were the one thing that allowed him to have anywhere close to a ‘normal’ eating schedule though, and now that he was down to his last one, he didn’t even want to _think_ about how much time he was going to spend just _eating_ today out of necessity. Knowing as much, Jaime shot him a sympathetic look.

“What’d you say you needed my help with again?” he asked, more attentive now. Bart pointed at the radio.

“It’ll take most of the day, but I should be able to Frankenstein our comms and the radio together so the comms will have an easier time picking up a long-range signal. I may need you to help me reweld some stuff or keep wires straight as I’m working though.”

“Right. Sure,” Jaime said, then glanced across the cabin to one of the front windows. It was snowing as hard as the day before. Maybe harder. “I don’t think we should bother with the black box then.”

Bart shrugged. “I mean, it wouldn’t _hurt_. The Team will go back there for sure. Use it as a starting point to create a radius as they’re searching for us and all that.”

“They won’t _need_ a radius if we can contact them,” Jaime argued. “Besides, look how hard it’s snowing. We won’t be able to see our hands in front of our faces. Why risk using up your energy, _and_ maybe running into bad guys if they’re checking out the crash, _and_ not finding our way back?”

“Alright,” Bart conceded. “Not eager to fight in the snow anyway. Well, unless we get bored later," Bart smirked at him. "I bet I could kick your butt in a snowball fight, even in a blizzard.”

Jaime’s lips quirked in amusement. “Yeah, first of all, we are _not_ doing that, and second of all, you _wish_.”

+

Bart wasn’t sure if Jaime’s assistance was actually helpful or just distracting.

Jaime’s knees were almost bumping into his from where Jaime had scooted around the tiny table, and his deep brown eyes were _right_ there, warm and close and meeting Bart’s gaze every time Bart glanced up, waiting patiently for instructions.

Honestly, half of what Bart asked Jaime to do he could have done himself, but the older boy looked so bored before even an _hour_ had passed that Bart found extra ways to include him.

With that comment from the night before still circling the back of his mind, Bart couldn’t help but feel hyper aware of every millisecond of contact now, each time their fingers brushed. Jaime didn’t seem to be thinking twice about it, though.

Maybe he was being paranoid.

In some ways it was kind of fun, toying with the comms and the radio. It had been awhile since he’d had to tackle a puzzle like this. Tim asked for his help from time to time, but for the most part there wasn’t a real _need_ for him to do this kind of work anymore, so he didn’t.

“Y’know, this might be the longest I’ve ever seen you not use superspeed,” Jaime mused after a couple hours.

“Hm?” Bart glanced up, busy realigning Jaime’s hand so that the wire Jaime was holding was positioned correctly. “Oh, yeah.”

Bart wasn’t sure if he’d ever done this kind of thing while using his powers, actually. He’d had to be much more strict with what he used his speed for in the future, much like Jaime was bugging him to do now.

He’d also mainly learned with a power blocking collar on, but he wasn’t about to tell Jaime _that._

He shrugged. “Old habits I guess. Green one again, please?” He pointed to another wire.

He could tell Jaime wanted to ask him more, but thankfully he took the hint and dropped it.

Under different circumstances, maybe Bart _would’ve_ told him. This wasn’t a topic he particularly minded talking about, after all. It was just...hard sometimes, with Jaime.

When it came to Bart’s past, he could never _just_ tell Jaime stuff. He had to be specific. Careful. If he said too much, it would only lead to more questions, and it wasn’t hard to stumble across a topic Bart _didn’t_ want to broach with him.

Obviously, On-mode Blue Beetle wasn’t responsible for _every_ bad thing that had happened to Bart in the moded timeline. That was apparently Jaime’s default assumption though, and the last thing Bart needed was to add more fuel to that fire. He’d lost count of how many times he’d lectured Jaime about how he and Moded Blue were not the same, but it never made a difference. All these years later, Jaime _still_ had a bad habit of blaming himself for things he had no business feeling guilty for.

Case in point, when Bart glanced up again there was a tell-tale crease across Jaime’s brow, a small frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were pointed in the direction of Bart’s hands, but he’d been staring unfocused into the middle distance, only snapping out of it when he noticed Bart was watching.

Bart held his eyes for a moment, a threat in his own. _Don’t make me start with you_. Caught red handed, Jaime’s expression turned sheepish before dropping Bart’s gaze.

“Probably the smart thing to do anyway,” he said as a coded apology, playfully shaking Bart’s wrist with a soft squeeze to let Bart know he got the message. “Better to save your energy.”

“Yeah, yeah, gotta do less and eat more, I know,” Bart shook Jaime’s hand away, ignoring the swoop that always tumbled through his stomach whenever Jaime got all sweet and gentle with him. “Either way, I should still be able to get this done today. Now keep your hands to yourself and let me focus.”

Jaime didn’t outwardly laugh, but Bart could see it in his eyes. “What are you _me_ , now?” he teased.

Bart stuck his tongue out at him.

+

Of all the times for Jaime to start attaching himself to Bart’s hip, why did he have to pick _today?_

As Jaime had so blatantly pointed out, _Bart_ was the more cuddly one between the two of them. It was rarer for Jaime to seek out _his_ affection. Yet, all of a sudden, Bart couldn’t seem to get rid of him. All morning and into the early afternoon, he kept going out of his way to touch Bart, or hug him, or mess with Bart’s hair, and there were only so many times he could dodge him in a way that came off as natural so that he didn’t tip him off.

Like, was it Opposite Day or something and Bart hadn’t gotten the memo? _Yeesh._

To Jaime’s credit, he _was_ scary good at sensing Bart’s mood when something was wrong, and that _did_ often result in a lot of extra hugs from him. The problem was that Bart didn’t _want_ Jaime to think anything was wrong. He wanted him to think everything was totally crash and normal. Clearly, he was doing a bad job.

Then again, he might be wrong. Jaime’s Worried Level had jumped up multiple notches from the moment they’d settled into the cabin, so he might just be more concerned about Bart than usual, and this was his way of showing it.

Either way, it was starting to drive Bart nuts. As much as he _liked_ the attention, he was _also_ trying to show Jaime that, _nope, no crush here,_ they were totally _super platonic bros_ , and Jaime would definitely not be sold on that if Bart was going around melting into his embrace every fifteen minutes.

Currently, they were taking a short break from the comms project, per Jaime’s suggestion, and Bart had sequestered himself in the armchair, making sure not to leave any room in case Jaime started getting ideas. Jaime was lying on the floor instead with his arms tucked under his head, staring up at the ceiling. Bart watched him curiously.

“Weird, is this what you always feel like?” Bart asked. Jaime glanced up at him.

“Huh?”

“When you have way more homework and stuff than I do,” Bart clarified. “I never thought I’d see the day where _you_ were more bored than _me_.”

Jaime snorted.

“Sí, now that you mention it,” he said. “And trust me, I prefer it that way. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“Who says I do?” Bart smirked. “Why do you think I’m always bothering you?”

Jaime rolled his eyes, one corner of his mouth rising. “Well, since we’re taking a break, do you wanna spar or something? B.C. would’ve had us running drills today.”

Bart tensed, panic washing through him.

A dozen scenarios popped into his mind that all ended with Jaime’s body heavy in his lap, or his chest pressing a long, warm line against Bart’s spine, knees pinning the backs of his calves.

 _Ha_ , nope. _Nooo_ , _thank you_. Bad idea.

It wasn’t _always_ difficult, sparring with Jaime. Practicing techniques built around their power sets was easy, and for martial arts he tried to pair up with Tim instead. The times where he _did_ have Jaime as a partner, he’d been able to compartmentalize, trying to focus on winning, and the fact that they were being assessed by Black Canary. With the way his day was going so far though, plus being alone, just the two of them, it would be _much_ harder to do that.

“I thought your whole point was that I should be saving my energy,” he said, glad now for the easy excuse, tilting his head to look at him upside down.

“Oh,” Jaime frowned. “Right, true.” He rocked up into a sitting position with a huff. “Well, I should still do some core work or something. Five bucks says Cass will yell at me for skipping a day even though we’re stranded.”

Bart snorted.

“Well, _I_ haven’t eaten in like, thirty seconds,” he said dryly, summer saluting backwards off the chair with a wobbly landing, “so guess I should go do that.”

Jaime shot him a look of sympathy, then reached his arms out in a request to be pulled up. Bart acquiesced, circling in front of him to clasp his hands and yank him to his feet.

Jaime’s hands weren't much bigger than Bart’s anymore, his grip strong but careful. Bart had noticed that early on, how naturally gentle Jaime was. It had surprised him then. It was usually comforting now. _Usually_ being the key word, because with Jaime right in front of him like this, hands covering his, it was tremendously hard to resist tugging him the rest of the way forward into a hug, risk of crush discovery be damned.

 _Ugh,_ he was just so _close_ all the time here! Normally Bart would relish that but, _again,_ with no one else there to serve as a buffer, he was terrified of giving himself away. It was still possible that Jaime was onto him, and it was making him second guess his every move.

Jaime gave him a searching once over, a worried tilt to his brow. “Are you actually hungry, or just tryna keep your calories up?”

Bart shrugged. “If I wait ‘til I’m hungry I’ll eat too fast.”

“Alright,” Jaime said, and to Bart’s surprise, tugged _him_ forward instead.

Bart’s heart skipped as Jaime’s arms circled his shoulder blades for a brief, comforting squeeze. Good grief, there was just no stopping him today. Ducking his head to hide his burning cheeks, Bart squeezed Jaime back too tight around the middle, snorting when Jaime grunted in protest and tried to lean away.

“For the zillionth time, dude,” Bart chuckled. “You worry too much.”

“One of us has to,” Jaime said with difficulty, poking a ticklish spot on Bart’s sides to dislodge Bart’s arms from his torso. “I’m making up for your share.”

Bart shook his head, darting to the storage cellar before Jaime could see how moded he was and ignoring the sound of Jaime’s scolding in Spanish over using his speed.

By the time Bart reappeared with another armful of jars ( _yes,_ at _normal_ speed this time, yeesh), Jaime was halfway through his rep of squats already.

Bart pivoted on his heel like the sight burned him, keeping his gaze fixed on the counter ahead as he beelined it to the kitchen.

Great, crash, mhm. This was fine, and he was _totally_ _not_ going to stare, even a little. He was just going to eat his jam, and mind his own business.

By the time he made his way through two jars, Jaime had moved on to doing pull ups on the bedroom door frame, knees bent and ankles crossed over one another.

Bart paused with his hands lingering unproductively on the lid of a third jar, throat going dry.

Jaime’s sweatshirt lay discarded on the arm of the couch, his black t-shirt riding up over his stomach. And, okay, Bart wasn’t _saying_ he had a major thing for Jaime’s arms, but like, it was rare for Jaime’s biceps to be on full display in general, let alone flexing in tandem with that visible strip of his bare abdomen as he pulled his body high enough to tuck his chin above the jut of wood.

Pursing his lips into a thin line, Bart’s gaze shot skywards in a silent plea for mercy.

He felt so dumbfoundingly moded watching him that he almost gave up pretending not to stare altogether in favor of finding some excuse to lean into it.

Instead, he turned back to the jar he was trying to open. It was a stubborn one. Probably best to go the Jaime method. He grabbed the first knife he saw from the knife block and started to wiggle the blade beneath the lid.

When his eyes rose again, they snagged on the fine line of dark hair peeking out above Jaime’s waistband. He knew he should look away, but every time he tried, he got distracted by the deep-cut V framing his abs instead.

 _Ughhh,_ seriously, who _gave_ him permission? _So not crash!_

Too caught up drooling like an idiot he didn’t catch right away that this time, Jaime was shooting brief glances _back_.

_Busted._

His heart rocketed into overdrive as he flinched, his grip slipping on the knife.

Distracted by his fear of being caught, his reflex to catch the damn thing in its tracks was too slow to register.

 _Pain_ sliced through him instead.

_“Fuck!”_

His hands shot down, clutching at his leg as the knife clattered to the ground.

When he looked down, a rip in his undersuit revealed a gash in his thigh, blood dripping to the floor. It stung like _hell_.

_Owowfuckingshitow._

“Bart?” Jaime was hurrying to him, workout forgotten. “¿Que pasó? You okay?”

“Yeah…” Bart gritted his teeth, chest tight and hot with embarrassment over the already dulling pain in his leg. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Knife just slipped.”

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

“Jesus, Kid,” Jaime muttered, gaze sweeping over the mess. “Quítate eso y siéntate, I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

Bart clutched harder at the fabric of his one-piece suit and paled.

“What?” he stalled, suddenly _far_ _more_ horrified than he’d been a second ago.

Even though he was still terrible at speaking it, he’d picked up enough Spanish from Jaime over the years that he understood a decent amount by now. Granted, _that_ particular phrase he’d actually learned from _Ed_ , not Jaime, but that was the _last_ thing he wanted to think of on top of everything else right now.

“Sorry, I meant take that off and sit,” Jaime translated. “That’s a deep cut, but I’m still gonna need to clean it fast before it heals over.”

“No, I know, I understood you,” Bart clarified. “But—”

“What?” Jaime said impatiently, already walking away.

Bart floundered, so busy mentally berating himself that he apparently didn’t have any brain power left for good excuses.

“It’s gonna heal in like three minutes,” he called after him.

“Sí, that’s my whole point,” Jaime called back from the other room.

Bart stood frozen in the kitchen. He was blanking. Like, so, so blanking.

He tried to run through a mental list of plausible reasons why this was a terrible idea. Convincing reasons. Reasons that would most definitely stop the impending disaster of having no choice but to strip the _whole suit off_ since he _couldn’t roll the legs that far up,_ and then sit there trying not to die as Jaime spent entire _minutes_ with his hands all over his upper thigh.

Too soon, Jaime reappeared in the hallway, frowning as he saw Bart hadn’t done as he’d asked.

“Guepardo, rápido. You don’t have time to be a baby about this,” Jaime scolded.

“But it’s _cold_ ,” Bart blurted.

“And you’re _bleeding_ ,” Jaime shot back, not the slightest bit impressed. He popped the kit open and snapped his fingers in the direction of the kitchen chair. “Ahora mismo.”

Resigning himself to his fate with a puffed out sigh, he turned his back to Jaime and did as he was told.

Even though it had been a lame excuse, he wasn’t wrong. It _was_ pretty freaking cold. Goosebumps settled over his skin as he sat gingerly onto the edge of the chair in his underwear. He shivered, fixing his eyes on the fire as if looking at it could somehow warm him. Or maybe burn him alive so he didn’t have to deal with this.

The dumbest part was that Jaime had seen him like this hundreds of times. They shared a locker room. They’d had to do quick changes in alleyways on the fly. They’d even been in similar situations to this, with one or the other needing a patch job on the bioship. This was nothing new.

He just felt so _ridiculous,_ though. Like he might as well have stuck a neon sign on his forehead!

Exposed. He felt so damn exposed.

A moment later, fabric nudged into his arm. He turned his head. Jaime was handing over his sweatshirt.

Oh. _Hello, Bart,_ _duh!_ Why hadn’t _he_ thought of that?

Grateful for _any_ excuse to put more clothes on, he tugged it over his head, careful not to get any blood on it. For a fraction of a second he let himself bury his face into the fabric. Jaime’s sweatshirts were always the comfiest, and they smelled nice, too. Like Jaime.

He was _not_ going to think about that right now though! Nope! That kind of thinking is what got him in this mess in the first place!

Said mess being Jaime, gauze in hand, getting down on his knees in front of him.

_Ugh._

“You could have asked me to open the jar for you,” Jaime chided as he started treating the wound, his fingers all business as they grazed along Bart’s inner thigh. “Now you’re gonna have to eat even more to make up for all the energy your healing factor’s using up.”

Bart swallowed and focused hard on Jaime’s voice and Jaime’s voice _alone_ , using the words as a welcome distraction from the sting of the rubbing alcohol and the efficient dance of Jaime’s hands, warm on his skin.

“At least there’s a doctor in the house,” he joked weakly, trying to keep the conversation going as he fixed his gaze on the fireplace again. Jaime snorted humorlessly, applying pressure to the cut and starting to wrap it.

“Yeah, I’m only in my second year of _undergrad_ , correcaminos,” he said. “Long way to go.”

It was everything he could do to stop his shiver as Jaime’s hands moved higher. Bart’s ears burned.

 _Ugh,_ this was so moded. He was such an _idiot._

Weirdly, Jaime’s hands stopped moving but stayed where they were on his thigh. Bart risked a glance down, then felt his cheeks burn, too.

“What?” he asked defensively.

Jaime was looking at him funny.

“I don’t know,” Jaime said with a slight tone of annoyance, searching Bart’s face, “you tell me.”

Well, crap.

“Nothing,” Bart shrugged. “It just stings a bit.”

Bart knew how to lie. It was a craft he’d been more or less forced into perfecting. That said, he wasn’t always on the top of his game, and by now he was frankly out of practice. Jaime’s silence said he wasn’t believing a word of it.

The tortuous quiet stretched as Jaime kept staring. Then his hands suddenly dropped from Bart’s leg.

“Does it really bother you that much?” Jaime asked, incredulous.

“Does what bother me?”

Bart suspected he knew full well what he meant, but _Jaime_ didn’t need to know how successfully he’d hit the nail on the head on the first try.

“What I said yesterday,” Jaime clarified.

Well, Bart supposed the one good thing about old habits was that sometimes they came back to you right when you needed them most.

He cocked a brow, looking Jaime straight in the eye.

“No? Why would it?”

He was all ready to pat himself on the back for how smooth his delivery was, back in the groove of it now. Except, Jaime was looking at Bart like he’d kicked him.

“Please don’t pull that with me,” he snapped, _sounding_ like a kicked puppy, too.

Guilt squirmed through Bart’s gut but he stuck to his guns. Jaime might be stubborn, but Bart liked to think he still outclassed him in that department.

“Pull _what_ with you?”

Jaime gestured generally at Bart’s face with one finger. “ _That_.”

Adrenaline spiked through him.

 _Okay_ , guess he wasn’t so slick after all.

See, this was the problem with getting close to people. Sometimes they got to know you a little _too_ well.

“Oh, crash, thanks, that was _much_ more specific—” he babbled, heart racing.

“You _know_ what I’m talking about.”

“I really don’t.”

Jaime scowled. Clearly he wanted to keep arguing, so Bart shut it down fast.

“ _Yeesh_ , Jaime, I’m _fine_ ,” he cut him off with an obnoxious whine. “I mean, y’know, not about the whole being stuck alone in the wilderness without backup or enough food and a bleeding leg thing, but besides that.”

Jaime closed his mouth again.

“Fine,” he said, dangerously low.

‘ _You’re in trouble’_ is what _that_ meant. Bart held back a sigh. He hated that tone. It sucked when Jaime was mad at him. He didn’t know what else to _do_ though.

He had not successfully hid this from him for _this_ long only to have his feelings outed now where there was no escape!

In tense silence, Jaime finished bandaging him then left Bart alone to go clean up the mess. The only way Bart knew he wasn’t _more_ mad at him, was that once Bart was able to put the undersuit back on, Jaime let Bart keep his sweatshirt instead of asking for it back.

+

In an ideal world, Jaime would’ve made Bart’s life easy by dropping the whole issue and going back to normal. They didn’t live in one of those though, despite Bart’s best efforts.

Instead, they currently resided in a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere with no one but each other for company, and _Jaime_ had apparently decided that the best use of his time was to go sit in the corner of the couch and pout for the rest of the day.

_So not crash._

At first he decided to simply ignore him and keep working. They were still stranded after all. He had to get their comms up and running or he was the one who’d be paying the bigger price.

Jaime was making it hard though. His moody silence was _loud._

After a solid two hours of it Bart finally leaned back in his chair with an aggravated sigh, turning his head in the direction of the fireplace where Jaime was adding more wood.

“ _Blue_ , seriously,” he whined, as Jaime stood up, “I’m trying to do delicate work here, and it’s hard for me to focus when you’re being all sulky.”

Jaime cut him a pointed glare, crossing his arms.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have to _sulk_ if you just talked to me,” he countered, a sharp edge to his voice.

Bart groaned. He didn’t even have to fake his frustration over Jaime’s stubbornness. It was getting nearly impossible to throw him off the scent nowadays, and he wasn’t sure if it was endearing or annoying as hell.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” he insisted, hoping that if Jaime was determined to be so _observant_ then he’d read between the lines enough to hear ‘ _not here; not right_ now’ as he continued, “Do you not see the feedback loop here? You thought I was annoyed when I wasn’t, but now I actually _am_ annoyed because you won’t let it go, so now we’re going in circles.”

If Jaime did get the message he was ignoring it, sporting a no-nonsense frown that turned him into the spitting image of his mother.

“Small problem with that,” Jaime snapped tersely (and now Bart _knew_ he was in trouble). “I _know_ you were lying earlier, Khaji told me. And now you’re lying _more_ to get out of it!”

Bart’s pulse jolted, panic twisting in the pit of his stomach, propelling him to his feet.

He tried to hide the nervous tic by scooping the debris on the table into the trash can, clamping down on the adrenaline-filled urge to start pacing.

Now more than ever was the time to keep his cool, but both his guilt and nerves worsened as he lifted his eyes again to meet the hurt and anger in Jaime’s.

Some cruel and cowardly part of him wanted to toss back that if Jaime cared so much, then why hadn’t he _figured it out yet!_ Before the thought even finished though, he was already chiding himself for being unfair. Bart had done everything in power to make sure Jaime couldn’t puzzle it out, after all. Even now, the lie slipped readily off his tongue, even and smooth.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Jaime.”

“Bullshit,” Jaime argued, not budging an inch, “you’ve been acting weird all day. I don’t get what it is about what I said that’s bothering you so much, but I can’t fix it if you won’t talk to me!”

“It’s not about that!” Bart blurted—regret already burning steel sharp on his tongue the instant he opened his mouth.

_Frickdamnitshutup!_

It's just—he wasn’t used to being called out so directly, and he hated when Jaime was angry with him. As the buildup of tension he’d been shoving down since yesterday bubbled back to the surface, he couldn’t help the outburst. It was like the words were pushed physically out of him.

“ _What_ then?” Jaime pleaded. “ _Why_ can’t you just tell me?”

Bart threw his hands up in frustration with a loud groan.

He wanted to find the words that would put a stop to this conversation and make it so they never came back to it. He _wanted_ to skip to the part where Jaime _gave in_ and let him get away with the lie, because it was easier that way, and this was not the place and time to _do_ this.

Instead—well.

He _had_ been named Impulse for a reason.

It wasn't so much that he actively _thought_ to do it. That would imply the idea ever left his mind in the first place. It was more that, _'I want to kiss Jaime'_ was so tattooed onto the back of his brain by now that he had to actively _not_ think about it whenever Jaime was with him. That was a tall order under the best of circumstances, and this? _Definitely not the best of circumstances._

So, he forgot. To not think about it, that is. He forgot, and then he moved so fast, even for himself sometimes, that by the time he realized where his body was heading, he was already there.

It took less than a heartbeat for Bart to reach him—or at least, less than one of _Jaime’s_. A heart monitor would be confused into flatlining from how quick _Bart’s_ was beating.

He just wanted them to _stop arguing_ already. So, his hands shot up to grip the sides of Jaime’s face and pull it down to his.

There wasn’t as far to go nowadays as there used to be. Jaime only had him beat by three inches. That was still three extra inches of distance Bart had to cover one way or another though, and since his tip-toes were occupied with rocketing him forward faster than the speed of sound, tugging Jaime down was the only option left to him.

Then Bart was kissing him.

_Bart was kissing him._

Jaime’s mouth was under his, warm and still half open mid-retort as Bart filled that gap with his bottom lip, and Bart was _kissing him._

Jaime stumbled from the force of it, his hands flying up in slow motion to clamp like vices around Bart’s biceps. A tiny flash of vertigo hit Bart from losing balance, finally allowing his brain to catch up to his mouth, but at _that_ point—well.

He _could_ have pulled back just as fast. Probably. But the physical whiplash might hurt Jaime. So, he was sort of _stuck_ kissing him.

Bart’s heart bounded up to his throat like it was trying to flee his body in terror, butterflies surging in his stomach as _agonizing_ seconds passed at quarter speed.

He had no idea how much time had passed yet for Jaime, or how long he needed to wait to know if the reason Jaime wasn’t kissing him _back_ was that there hadn’t been enough time to, or because he was rejecting him. It was difficult to judge the relative time difference between his perception and a non-speedsters when he got going this fast, and it was made about six times _worse_ by the fact that he had no idea what the ‘normal’ reaction time would even _be_ for something like this.

Bart had never kissed someone by surprise before. At least, not like this. Not out of _nowhere_ with someone he wasn’t already _dating._

 _...Man,_ though.

It felt _good,_ kissing Jaime. Jaime’s mouth hadn’t even had a chance to _move_ yet, but it felt so _impossibly_ crash pressed to his.

If Jaime’s mouth _had_ moved, then it must have only fallen further open from the shock, giving Bart even easier access to deepening the kiss, if he wanted to. He _did_ want to, but he didn’t dare. He may have been dumb enough to _start_ this, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t wait for at least _some_ idea of what the hell Jaime was thinking before digging this grave any deeper.

He was almost positive Jaime’s grip on his arms was still increasing. Another reflex of surprise, maybe. He was moving so _slow_. It would take a _lifetime_ for Jaime to catch up with him.

At last, the momentum of Bart’s collision and Jaime’s push back reached an equilibrium, meaning he could safely start to slow down again without accidentally breaking him.

Bart wanted to let his speed drop. To let time and Jaime start working again at normal speed.

Then again, he also wanted to close his eyes, let time slow to a standstill, and live inside this kiss for as long as he could go without breathing.

He went with the first option, but figured closing his eyes was a good idea either way.

The sound of the fire and the rush of wind and electricity across Bart’s skin resumed their normal pace. Jaime stiffened—or maybe finished stiffening—his grip still tight on Bart’s arms, holding them both in place.

During the first second, Bart started to regret closing his eyes after all, because he had no way of knowing if Jaime had closed his. Then there was a _second_ second, and he felt an awful, burning knot inside his throat and stomach twist.

Jaime still wasn’t kissing back.

It was only him.

He was kissing Jaime, and Jaime wasn’t kissing back, and then all he could feel was howling wind and bone-chilling snow pelting against his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _Correcaminos_ \- Roadrunner  
>  _¿Que pasó?_ \- What happened?  
>  _Guepardo_ \- Cheetah  
>  _Rápido_ \- Quick  
>  _Ahora mismo_ \- Right now
> 
> I'm not cackling at your misery, idk what you're talking about <3 At least it's a baby cliff hanger, the next chap is going up tomorrow!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, a giant ty to [CasualThursday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualThursday) for your editing magic!!
> 
> Jaime just needs a Moment, okay? Whew.

Jaime stood, struck dumb, in the living room, hands hovering in the space where Bart’s arms had just been.

No matter how often he saw Bart in action, Jaime was never fully prepared for how fast the speedster could move. One moment Bart had been halfway across the cabin from him, the next a powerful breeze had given way to two hot palms covering his jaw, the sheer force of Bart’s momentum sending Jaime stumbling with an involuntary gasp.

Clutching at Bart’s arms for balance, Jaime’s heart jolted to a stop as—for one burning second—Bart’s lips slotted together with his.

Then he was gone.

Quick as it started, it was over, too fast for Jaime to even register if what the hell he _thought_ was happening actually _was_.

Frozen in abject shock, he’d stared wide-eyed at the empty air in front of him—

—then heard a loud bang, the front door flying open with such superhuman haste that it slammed back against the wall.

A forgotten retort was still on the tip of his tongue, born from the hurt that had been festering all afternoon in the pit of his stomach. Said stomach now felt like it had been electrocuted and set on fire, heat spilling up from his gut to where his heart was hammering against his ribs. His mouth literally tingled, the smell of ozone affirming that the sensation left by Bart’s lips had been far more than metaphorical, reducing his brain to an incoherent scramble of exclamation points. He could practically _hear_ the old dial up noise as it rebooted, vaguely noting the persistent buzz of _something_ making an awful racket in the back of his mind.

Flinching from a sudden blast of freezing air, he snapped out of it enough to register Khaji’s agitated chittering.

_“—me Reyes! The Kid Flash is in imminent danger of overexposure.”_

Jaime’s eyes widened.

_Shit—_

His head snapped to the door, still flung open. Panic flooded his veins.

In an instant he was in the air and whooshing out the door, squinting as the snow-filled wind began raging viciously around him. The storm howled in his ears, bone numbingly cold even with his suit on.

 _“Tracking heat signature,_ ” Khaji said.

Jaime’s head whipped back and forth, searching fruitlessly for a flash of yellow despite the fact that, unless Bart had sped into it, he _hadn’t been wearing the damn KF suit_ when he left.

_Please don’t have gotten far, please don’t have gotten far—_

_“Target acquired.”_ Khaji tilted Jaime’s chin in the right direction, zeroing in _not_ on a blur traveling too fast to be anyone but Kid Flash, but a motionless, human-shaped lump on the ground.

Jaime’s heart lodged itself in his throat.

He dove so fast he might as well have teleported, not registering a single moment of the descent. It looked like Bart had tripped on something hidden under the snow that sent him sprawling, his ankle now caught under a root. It also must have happened seconds ago, because Bart was just rising to his forearms, bringing a hand to his head.

Jaime’s hand morphed into a blade the moment he touched down, slicing away the root with a flick of his wrist. He wasn’t even sure he fully landed, leaning down to scoop Bart into his arms with practiced ease before immediately pushing off into the air again. He did his best to shield Bart’s bare face from the bitter wind, cradling his snow-soaked body tight to his chest as Bart shivered against him, freezing but _alive._

Khaji guided him back as best he could, retracing the fading signature of Bart’s speed trail until Jaime was able to spot the glow of the fire through one of the cabin’s windows. Reaching it with a wave of gratitude, Jaime landed in the entryway and, with difficulty, shouldered the door closed again.

With the gale of the storm cut off, the cabin was jarringly quiet, the shift of the logs in the dying fire the only noticeable sound as Jaime breezed straight through to the kitchen, nabbing a blanket from the back of the couch along the way.

The immediate danger was behind them, but adrenaline still pumped hard through Jaime’s veins, his short-lived relief of having Bart back and safe replaced instantly with pure, indignant rage.

“Which part of _‘stranded in a blizzard’_ isn’t sinking in for you right now?” Jaime ranted, fuming, as he deposited Bart on the countertop. “I mean, _Jesus_ , Bart! What the fuck were you thinking?”

He snatched up the _one_ hand towel they’d been able to find in a kitchen drawer, scrubbing it roughly over Bart’s freezing wet hair to get the worst of the snow away. Bart’s face scrunched under the assault.

“That hypothermia sounded less moded than dealing with the consequences of the dumb thing I did?” Bart muttered to the linoleum, barely keeping his teeth from chattering.

“Not funny,” Jaime snapped, draping the blanket over Bart’s shoulders and wrapping him up like a cocoon.

“Not kidding.”

“ _Stop it_ ,” Jaime grabbed his chin, practically shaking himself now. “Mírame.”

Bart dragged his eyes to Jaime’s.

“I don’t care _what_ the situation is,” Jaime simmered. _“You don't run off like that._ Not _ever_. You hear me?”

Bart swallowed, looking away again. Jaime opened his mouth to repeat himself.

 _“Yes,_ Jaime,” Bart answered tersely. “I hear you.”

Jaime leaned back with a harsh sigh, running his hands over his face.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he snapped hoarsely, pulling Bart’s blanket-covered body to his chest. Bart was stiff for a beat, then crumpled against him, tucking the freezing tip of his nose into the crook of Jaime’s neck.

Bart didn’t fight him when Jaime scooped him off the counter and plopped him sideways into his lap in front of the fire, slowly rubbing warmth back into Bart’s ears. Jaime was still seething, just quietly now, glaring into the flames as Khaji snaked a blue tendril out to add more wood for them.

He could tell Bart was trying not to fidget. That he seemed to want to say something to Jaime, or wanted Jaime to say something to him. Jaime didn’t care. If Bart was allowed to give him a heart attack, then Jaime was allowed to make him deal with the silent treatment for a couple of minutes.

“Are you mad at me?” Bart asked after a while, voice barely above a whisper.

“Gee, what gave me away?”

“Not for that,” Bart mumbled into his blanket. Jaime let out a heavy sigh through his nose.

“No, Bart. I’m not mad about that part.”

Bart’s voice went so quiet Jaime nearly had to ask Khaji to repeat him.

“But you aren’t—you didn’t want it, either.” 

He didn’t even phrase it like a question.

“I don’t know, guepardo,” Jaime said honestly. He refrained from adding, _you were too busy making me panic to let me think about it._

Bart shrank a little in his arms. “LookcanIjust—”

“Ay dios mío, Bart,” Jaime groaned, putting his hand over Bart’s mouth. “No. For _once_ in your life, just be quiet and let me think for a minute.”

Jaime still sounded upset. He knew he did, and that sucked because he normally tried very hard not to get upset in front of Bart. The last thing Jaime _ever_ wanted was to somehow remind Bart of _Bad_ Blue Beetle and scare him.

Bart didn’t seem scared though, as much as he did chastised, and he didn’t try to say anything else as Jaime moved his hand away and shifted Bart’s weight in his lap a little, tightening his arms around him angrily.

He sighed again to himself. _Jesus_.

Since when did he _angry-hug_ things? He had never in his _life_ felt the need to angrily hug someone before. That basically summed up his relationship with Bart in a nutshell though, didn’t it? Just one long string of things he’d never felt the need to do before, but did now that Bart was with him.

The calm crackling of the fire helped slow Jaime’s pulse to a more normal rate, the last remnants of adrenaline fading until all he was left with was the _rest_ of the confusing cocktail of emotions swirling inside him.

He resisted looking down but refused to lessen his grip (because Bart had _lost_ the privilege to be anywhere except where Jaime could keep close tabs on him, _thank you)_ then took a slow and steady breath.

 _A la madre_ , he had no idea how to feel about this. Well, other than _electrically fried_ maybe. He’d never thought that kissing a speedster could be a _safety hazard_.

 _...Had_ he even thought about that before? Like, _period?_ At all?

He didn’t _think_ he had. Then again, Jaime didn’t exactly think twice about most forms of physical contact with Bart at this point, did he? The boundaries he had with Bart and the boundaries he had with other people were very different. Primary example: with other people they _existed_.

Excluding Bart, Jaime didn’t even consider himself much of a physical person. With family, maybe, but with friends it was only ever normal stuff like the occasional hug hello or goodbye, a handshake, a joking nudge—that sort of thing. Bart was an outlier. By a longshot.

That wasn’t _Jaime’s_ doing though. He’d just gotten used to it. It was a Bart ThingTM, and he’d started sorting those into their own separate category in his brain a long time ago. Bart was too much of an ‘off the charts’ kind of person to bother having a normal set of expectations for him. Better to give him his own scale. It had been a little much at first, but kind of nice, too. Sort of like he’d adopted an overeager puppy. Or more accurately, like an overeager puppy had adopted _him_. 

Being _comfortable_ wasn’t the same thing as _liking_ someone though, was it? Like, in _that_ way. In the past, being near his crushes felt more akin to being on the brink of explosion.

He watched the flames catch and dance along the large pieces of wood as he thought, trying to untangle the mess inside him.

Jaime liked to think he had a pretty low threshold when it came to needing a reason to care about people. He wanted to be a doctor, after all, and he was a _superhero._ He wouldn’t _do_ those things if he didn’t have that basic instinct to care. Obviously though, he had a fiercer type of love for the people in his life that were closest to him, and anyone with eyes or ears could tell that Bart had slotted himself into _that_ category about as quick and easy as he slotted himself under Jaime’s arm whenever he saw him.

That was the thing with Bart, though. He’d just sort of _happened_ to him, and then _kept happening_ every day since. Not once in their four years of friendship had Bart given Jaime enough time to stop to wonder if it might be worth putting a more specific name to it. Bart just _was_. _They_ just _were_.

Were _what,_ though? What did that even mean?

He figured that the way he felt about Tye _should_ have felt like a good comparison. Other people had certainly called Bart and Jaime best friends before. A lot, actually. Jaime always answered ‘Tye’ and not Bart though, if someone asked who his best friend was. Not because he didn’t feel a similar closeness to Bart, but because that hadn’t felt like a big _enough_ term.

Normal words in general were rarely enough to encompass the whirlwind of a human being that was Bart Allen. This boy never just smiled, he _beamed._ When Bart wanted to move, he _dashed_. His hugs were always bone crushing _squeezes_ , and _hungry_ was hardly an apt descriptor because he usually skipped straight ahead to _ravenous_.

A phrase like ‘just friends’ sounded way too casual and inaccurate for them, but going the step beyond best friend to ‘like his little brother’ also sounded...weird. He wouldn’t blink if _Milagro_ described Bart like that, considering how much Bart had become like an honorary member of the Reyes household in recent years, but now that he was thinking about it, Jaime had not once thought to use that to describe Bart’s relationship to _him_.

He supposed that was partly why he was glad he and Bart were Team partners, because at least the word _‘partner’_ seemed like a much better fit. He hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that some people used that term in a romantic sense, he’d simply liked that it carried a weight that conveyed something deeper. He and Bart would literally _die_ for each other after all, and almost _had_ on multiple occasions.

...Bart _had_ flushed yesterday when Jaime’d called him that, hadn’t he? His partner, that is. Y _chale_ , Jaime had blamed it on the _fire_ , ¡ay, qué menso!

Honestly, could he blame Bart if he’d been reminded of the more romantic meaning? Clearly _something_ about the way Jaime felt towards him was different, even if Jaime wasn’t one hundred percent sure yet what that something _was_.

 _“You’ve been quiet_ ,” Jaime thought at Khaji Da, surprised he hadn’t chimed in yet to say what he thought about any of this.

Khaji whirred indifferently. _“Reporting consistent behavior is inefficient, Jaime Reyes.”_

Jaime startled. _“What?_ ”

_“Neither you nor the Bart Allen are exhibiting patterns that lie outside your usual parameters.”_

Jaime spluttered.

 _“¿Qué rayos dices?_ _Bart_ kissed _me! How is that not different?”_

 _“Irrelevant,”_ Khaji dismissed. _“Such rituals associated with human mating lie well within the predicted range between two humans of close companionship. Recall, Jaime Reyes, our previous discussions regarding the Kid Flash as your most easily manipulated weakness—”_

 _“Por_ favor _,”_ Jaime groaned, _“Do not start with me on_ tactics _when I’m in the middle of an emotional crisis!”_

 _“Logical irregularities are not issues this scarab is designed to assist you with, Jaime Reyes,_ ” Khaji reminded. _“The Bart Allen is precious to you, is he not? I see no strategic benefit in clarifying self-evident information.”_

Jaime’s stomach swooped and he had to stop his mouth from gaping. _What_ the _—_ how was this—what the hell about this was self-evident!?

 _“I see no reason why this should upset you, Jaime Reyes,”_ Khaji clicked impatiently. _“You have self-professed your capacity to feel attraction towards the same sex, have you not?”_

 _“I—but—”_ Jaime floundered, _“We’re not just talking about_ A _boy here, ese! We’re talking about_ Bart!”

“ _Rhetorical,”_ Khaji said. _“I am aware that you have expressed displeasure regarding hormone-based analysis—”_ Jaime groaned again. _“—but such metrics are also consistent—”_

 _“Jesus, okay! I get it!”_ Jaime complained, cheeks heating.

 _“It appears to me that you do not_. _”_

Jaime swallowed.

His mind was still stalling over the idea that, out of _all the words in the English language_ , Khaji had judged ‘precious’ to be the most correct and factual term for it.

Seriously? _Precious?_ Jesus.

He’d be more annoyed by it except he wasn’t sure he could say Khaji was _wrong_.

...Mierda, he was so moded.

More mixed up than ever, he fought back the temptation to give up thinking about it all together in favor of face planting into Bart’s hair. Admittedly though, _that_ wasn’t the most platonic idea he’d ever had, now was it?

It _was_ telling that, even pissed off at Bart, Jaime’s first instinct was to hang on tight to him for comfort. The actual _kissing_ part though…

Warmth creeped up the back of his neck. He wet his lips.

He hadn’t... _disliked_ it? Necessarily? But he also wasn’t sure he felt any which way about it because, again, he’d been _too busy panicking_. What was he supposed to do though? Make Bart feel even _worse_ by potentially deciding _eh, nope, not into it_ , after asking him to try it again?

“You can let go, I’m warmed up now,” Bart murmured.

“Why?” Jaime snapped idly. “So you can run off on me again?”

He regretted it as soon as he felt Bart shrink against him, but was still too angry and confused to apologize for it yet either.

...Dios, it figured that where _most_ people looked for excuses to be _closer_ when they liked someone, Bart would want to be further away. Was that why Jaime felt such an urge to trap him in his lap like this? Mainly, he’d been thinking that he didn’t trust Bart not to leave again, but now he wondered if it was also some half-baked, counterintuitive attempt of his _own_ to run away. As in, to rush backward into what felt _normal_ , because he had no idea what to do with a Bart that kept his distance. Bart being too close to him, though? That he easily understood.

He glanced down at the boy sitting sideways in his arms, noting how stiffly Bart was holding himself, eyes trained on a fixed point on the floor. He was keeping the blanket wrapped tight around himself like a barrier—like he was doing all he could to put space between him and Jaime without actually getting up. It hurt in a way that made Jaime feel helpless. All he could think to do was hug him tighter, as if _that_ would do anything.

Jaime sighed, running a hand over his face again, then tugged gently at Bart’s side, trying to get him to turn. Bart hunched in on himself and didn’t budge.

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” Jaime murmured. “Ven aquí. Please?”

Bart held out for a moment longer, then reluctantly maneuvered around to face him, tucking his legs loosely around Jaime’s waist and readjusting the blanket around his shoulders without meeting Jaime’s eye.

Jaime cradled the side of Bart’s head, at a bit of a loss because all Bart _usually_ needed to feel better was a little extra attention and physical affection. Clearly that wasn’t the case now. Bart’s jaw clenched the second Jaime’s thumb brushed his cheek, his eyes fixed on a spot somewhere over Jaime’s shoulder as he made a herculean effort not to cry.

Jaime’s heart ached, his anger bleeding away.

“Guepardo, please look at me,” Jaime murmured, trying to be gentle. Bart didn’t move, a stiff and solid statue in his arms. Jaime soldiered ahead anyway. “You are _so_ important to me. You know that, right?”

Bart’s eyes darted upward toward the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Judging by the misty eyes, he was starting to lose the fight on the crying front.

“Can we _please_ not,” Bart’s voice wavered, scratchy. “It was stupid, and I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry. Can we just pretend it didn’t happen?”

Jaime’s heart broke altogether.

“Hey, it’s _not_ stupid. And I _promise_ I’m not mad.” Bart turned his head to the side, one hand shooting up to agitatedly wipe across his face. Jaime caught his thin fingers and squeezed. “You just _surprised_ me, guepardito—”

“Jaime,” Bart said desperately, cutting him off and pulling his hand away, “I get it. I _really_ don’t need you to give me the ‘we’re best friends’ speech, okay? Just drop it and we can move on like nothing happened. Please?”

Jaime’s brows furrowed. He palmed Bart’s other cheek, trying to turn his head back to him. Bart resisted, the line of his neck tense.

“I mean it—” Bart choked. “I’dmuchratherforgetitthanloseyouasafriend.”

“Bart,” Jaime coaxed more firmly, because this was _important_ and he needed him to know that. Bart’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, eyelashes wet. There was still some pushback against Jaime’s palm but Bart relented enough for Jaime to swing his head back to him.

“There is nothing you could ever do that’d make you lose me,” Jaime informed him, because regardless of how confused he felt about the rest of it, what he _did_ know without a doubt was that.

Despite Bart’s best efforts, tears began escaping from the corners of his eyes anyway. Jaime cupped both sides of Bart’s face, tracing his thumbs across his freckles as he wiped the tears away.

“And please stop putting words in my mouth, okay? I wasn’t gonna give you some speech, and when I said ‘I don’t know,’ it wasn’t a ‘no’ in disguise. I meant it like I said it.” Jaime combed his fingers through Bart’s wind-tangled hair. “Alright?”

Bart wiped his nose with his sleeve. 

The flames behind Bart’s head made the strands glow velvet red between Jaime’s fingers, the shadows hiding some of the blotchiness on Bart’s cheeks. The way Bart held himself was still wound with tension, hunched inside his blanket, and he just looked so damn miserable that how could Jaime _not_ want to pull him in and kiss it better?

His heart lurched into a terrified frenzy just thinking about it. Instead, he scooped Bart to his chest, arms wrapped tight around him as he cradled the nape of his neck. It didn’t feel like enough, but he wasn’t sure he could handle more than the _idea_ of kissing Bart again quite yet.

Trying to calm himself as much as Bart, he resumed the soothing motion of his fingers through Bart’s hair. The texture was a little more straw-like than usual from all the snow that had gotten into it, but still familiar and grounding as it slid between his fingers.

The fact that his brain even supplied kissing as an option had to mean _something_ , right? If he’d found himself in this position with _any_ other friend, Jaime doubted he would’ve done even _this_ much.

It also wasn’t like he _had_ to go for Bart’s lips again. There were plenty of other acceptable places to kiss a person.

His pulse skipped nervously.

Deciding not to let himself second-guess the urge, he nosed into the space above Bart’s ear and pressed what he _hoped_ was a comforting kiss there, long and gentle.

It felt surprisingly easy, that little added affection. Scary in theory but simple in practice, like a natural extension he barely had to think about.

Something in him shifted. Left him unsteady.

His eyes snagged on the gray fabric below the base of Bart’s neck, poking out from under the blanket, and he thought about how aggravating the tangle in the pit of his stomach felt earlier, just from that small amount of distance Bart had tried to put between them.

 _Reporting consistent behavior is inefficient,_ Khaji had said.

Dios, who was he kidding? The scarab wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t the first time he’d held Bart while he cried like this, and he could no longer even _remember_ a time that it hadn’t felt right, having Bart in his arms in general. 

As much as it irked him to admit his bicho pesado was ever right about anything, he was starting to think that, somewhere along the way, this ridiculous, impulsive bundle of a boy had become so much more to him, and he’d just been too thick-headed to realize it.

Bart sniffled but let Jaime hold him, and after a couple of moments, tucked his arms under Jaime’s and hugged him back.

“Sorry for running,” he murmured against Jaime’s shoulder.

Jaime looked at him, _really_ looked, and it was like something finally clicked.

Bart kissed him. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t meant it. Sure, maybe Jaime didn’t have all the right words to describe what _he_ felt yet, but that didn’t mean he felt it any _less._ Maybe it was useless, overthinking it. Maybe the better answer was to simply follow what felt right and put words to it later.

A little overwhelmed in what he was pretty sure was a good way, he tucked his nose back into Bart’s hair.

“I’ll forgive you if you stop pouting,” he murmured by Bart’s ear, squeezing him, “how ‘bout that?”

Bart tilted his head back just enough to shoot him a soft, exasperated look. “M’not _pouting,_ you jerk.” He jabbed a finger in Jaime’s side, making him squirm.

Jaime inspected him with a hum, lips quirking. “I don’t know, I’m pretty sure you are though.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Bart fought down a smile, smushing his face into Jaime’s neck to hide the splash of red covering his cheeks.

Jaime bit back a laugh, a tiny, familiar rush of affection spreading through his chest as he rested his cheek on Bart’s head.

+

“It’s dark, guepardito,” Jaime said into the quiet kitchen, a few hours later. “You should call it.”

Reluctant as Jaime had been to let Bart go, they did have to move eventually. Once Bart’s tears had dried and Jaime had made him promise _again_ not to run off, he finally let him up. Though their anger was gone, the air still felt thick between them as they maneuvered cautiously around each other, as though stepping on fragile ground.

While there was some semblance of daylight left, they’d tried to fill the time productively by finishing up the project with the radio.

“Almost done,” Bart said. “Should have enough charge to leave the channel open overnight in case the Team flies over early when the storm’s supposed to start calming down.”

“Alright, well I’m gonna wash up.”

“Yeah, ‘kay,” Bart acknowledged, distracted, focused on his task.

By the time Jaime came back, Bart was finished, standing with his back to him in the center of the kitchen and shaking the stiffness from his fingers. Jaime watched him from the mouth of the hallway, his stomach twisting.

“You good?”

“Yeah. Tired,” Bart said, sounding it.

“Vamonos then,” Jaime invited, trying to keep his tone light and normal.

Bart rubbed the back of his neck as he tilted his head from side to side. _Steeling himself,_ Jaime suspected. The observation pinched at Jaime’s chest, but he wasn’t sure how to fix it.

Bart _did_ still tag along with him though, walking behind Jaime as they followed the beam of Jaime’s flashlight back to the bedroom.

Jaime stopped short in the doorway, clamming up at the sight of the bed. Side by side, they both stared into the room, unmoving.

Sparks of terror ricocheted around Jaime’s gut, that explody feeling he’d been thinking about before now _most definitely there_. He pursed his lips with a guilty flash of empathy for putting Bart through this the night before without knowing it.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“...Want to camp out in the living room instead?”

“ _Yep._ ” Bart disappeared with a whoosh.

With relief, Jaime noted that Bart grabbed _both_ of their pillows and all the bedding. He’d held back from specifying _together_ in case Bart needed space, but it was what Jaime wanted, so it was good to know they were on the same wavelength.

By the time he turned around and walked the length of the short hallway, Bart had already shoved the coffee table out of the way to make room for a cozy nest of blankets and cushions.

Jaime wasn’t sure _why_ it felt less overwhelming, the idea of sleeping near him on the floor by the fire. Maybe because this setup was more familiar, reminding Jaime of all the team sleepovers at the Hub where Bart had inevitably found his way over to him. Maybe because it didn’t carry the same expectations. Despite the platonic way they’d slept in the same bed the night before without issue, the insinuation now was just...way too much with this new context.

Bart was already tucked under a blanket with his back up against the couch, his fingers fidgeting with the fabric at the corner of his pillow. Jaime picked his way through the pile of quilts and couch cushions to nestle down under a duvet beside him.

Curling up on his side, he stared shyly at Bart, not sure what to do with the half-formed revelations stirring in his stomach.

It immediately felt strange that Bart didn’t move as Jaime lay down. Normally, Bart’s preferred distance from _any_ of his friends when he had an excuse to be cuddled was a couple of inches max. Less, with Jaime. He was used to automatically lifting his arm when Bart was in close proximity, giving Bart room to duck under it without having to ask. Now, he wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. Even though Bart was less than half a foot away, he could feel the distance opening up between them again, all nervous energy.

Once again he was struck by the urge to simply pull Bart to him, but he wasn’t sure if that was because he wanted Bart close, or wanted to avoid feeling awkward.

He was starting to think it might be both.

Bart still wasn’t looking at him. Just fidgeting. Like he wasn’t sure what to do next either. Unable to stand it, Jaime decided to at least offer, lifting one corner of his blanket in invitation.

Bart’s gaze darted up, following the movement. He hesitated for a few seconds, then scooted over, nestling into his usual position under Jaime’s arm up against his chest. Relieved, Jaime draped it over Bart’s shoulders and relaxed.

He really did feel much better, having Bart close to him. He’d always thought this was something he merely did for Bart’s benefit, but…

He adjusted a little, tucking Bart’s head under his chin. Maybe at first that was true. His mother had been the one to notice how touch-starved Bart was when he’d first landed in the past. Ever since then, Jaime’d made it a point to let Bart get away with as many of his touchy-feely habits as he wanted. Bart had helped him so much, after all. He wanted to do all he could to repay the favor.

That was years ago, though. Bart had more or less adjusted to this timeline by now. That touchiness never stopped though, at least not with Jaime.

Maybe he’d started to take Bart’s constant attention for granted. Maybe the truth was he _liked_ being the one who was on the receiving end of Bart’s constant affection. That he actively _wanted_ it.

Another prickle of warmth crawled up the back of Jaime’s neck.

He thought again of the shock of Bart’s mouth so suddenly covering his. Of how something in him leapt in a way he wasn’t sure was just panic. He thought of the way his eyes always sought out the tell-tale green of Bart’s whenever Jaime stepped into the same room. Of how he always gravitated in the direction of Bart’s too-quick, excitable voice as soon as he heard it. He thought of how it felt to press even that small kiss into the soft hair on the side of Bart’s head, and of how Bart’s megawatt grin always quieted the anxious parts of him as it stretched wide across the speedster’s ever-moving mouth, lighting up the entirety of Bart’s face.

_The Bart Allen is precious to you, is he not?_

He was, Jaime realized. More than he’d ever stopped to take stock of before.

God, _how_ had he never stopped to take stock of that before?

The question rattled around inside him like a caged thing, chasing away all possibility of sleep. He pulled back from the other boy a little, deciding that there was only one surefire way to settle this whole thing.

He glanced down at Bart’s mess of auburn hair and swallowed hard, terrified.

“Bart?” He must have sounded as nervous as he felt because at last Bart raised his eyes— _very_ green and very _close_ —to his. “Can I, um…” he faltered, gaze dropping to Bart’s lips.

Bart blinked, freezing up in an entirely different way than before as his ears turned bright red. Jaime traced his thumb along the shell of one of them, sure his own face wasn't faring any better.

“Can we...maybe try that again?” He held Bart’s gaze tentatively.

Expression slack with surprise, Bart stared for a moment like he was trying to figure out if Jaime was serious, glancing down at Jaime’s mouth and then back up to him. Jaime stayed right where he was, heart pounding with nerves, and hoped the continuous movement of his thumb would hide how much his hands were shaking.

Bart’s throat bobbed, then he gave the smallest nod of his head.

Almost _certain_ he would explode if he chickened out now, Jaime cupped his palm along Bart’s jaw and pulled Bart’s mouth to his.

He fumbled at first, the angle awkward, their lips not quite slotting together correctly. For half a heartbeat Bart was as still as Jaime had ever felt him, then he tilted his head at the same time as Jaime so their mouths fit better together.

A current of electricity zipped through Jaime again, a rush of heat following it, pooling low in his belly. He inhaled sharply through his nose.

_Oh._

Bart’s mouth was _blazing_ , warmer even than the rest of him, a little dry and chapped from the earlier freezing wind, but quickly becoming less so as Jaime’s lips started moving with more purpose against his.

The thrum of Bart’s pulse beneath Jaime’s palm was bullet train fast, and he let out this little _groan_ in the back of his throat that shook Jaime so deeply he swore the world shifted on its axis.

With a gasp, Bart broke for air, his entire body trembling. Jaime stared, another bolt of heat striking his gut. The green of Bart’s irises had turned _dark_.

Bart practically pounced on him.

His mouth was somehow even more molten as it engulfed Jaime’s again, all hesitation gone. Jaime nearly toppled from his side onto his back, his heart skipping multiple beats in surprise as he clutched at Bart’s shoulder.

Twisted half-over him, Bart slid an arm around Jaime’s waist, the fabric of the borrowed hoodie dragging softly over Jaime’s exposed hip. Jaime’s shirt had ridden up a bit, Bart’s hand a hot brand against the bare skin at the small of his back. Sparks shot up Jaime’s spine and burned down to a bright point by his tail bone, something coiling deep in his gut.

_Wow, okay, yep, wow, yes._

In pure reactionary mode now, Jaime yanked Bart’s body to his until they were flush together, a bone-deep satisfaction ringing through him as Bart made that _noise_ again.

 _God_. Jaime had kissed other people, _dated_ other people, but never in his life had it felt like _this._ It was like he couldn’t get enough of Bart’s air in his lungs. Like Bart burned so bright he’d soon reduce Jaime to a puddle beneath him.

Before this moment, he'd thought he'd already _known_ Bart’s body. At least, as well as he knew his own. They were teammates. Partners. It came with the territory.

Being on the Team meant knowing Cassie favored her left leg too much, and how Tim’s stance changed when trying to hide a fractured rib. It meant knowing precisely how much Gar’s weight would change in his arms, mid flight, when he transformed from whatever animal he was back into himself again. And with Bart?

He knew the exact way Bart’s back muscles shifted when he was getting ready to spring out of his arms into the fray. Knew the difference in rhythm between _impatience, hunger,_ or _nerves,_ when he started drumming his fingers on the table. He knew all the places Bart’s body would fit against his when he crashed into Jaime for an all-encompassing squeeze of _I missed you_. Hell, he’d even had Khaji catalogue every scratch from every scuffle they’d fought in together, just to make sure nothing healed the wrong way.

Yet, suddenly, it was like Jaime had never touched this boy before, every line of him demanding to be relearned.

Bart melted into his hands with a cut off moan as Jaime’s fingers skimmed up his back under the sweatshirt, seeking out the zipper of his undersuit. He wanted that _off_. Wanted him closer. Bart deepened the kiss, his tongue still sweet from the strawberry preserves as it slipped boldly into Jaime’s mouth to caress his. Distracted, Jaime’s touch lingered feather-light at the top of Bart’s spine. Bart reached back for the hoodie with impatience, his whole body vibrating at the edges so he could phase it off of himself without breaking the kiss.

Jaime _shuddered,_ blood rerouting, because _oh, fuck_ —that was not something he’d ever considered.

Bart’s palm slipped beneath Jaime’s shirt to press flat against his abdomen, sending more sparks crackling downwards as Jaime’s heart raced wildly. His brain fired off conflicting orders as Bart shoved the fabric up to Jaime’s armpits, wanting to yank it the rest of the way off but _adamantly_ against having to stop kissing him to do so.

In fact, he was pretty against the idea of removing his lips from Bart’s ever again.

Bart made the decision for him.

He pulled on the zipper Jaime’d neglected, shimmying the fabric off his arms and tugging the thing down to his waist like it offended him. Then he pushed at Jaime’s arms until Jaime took the hint, detaching them from Bart’s hips long enough for Bart to superspeed the shirt over Jaime’s head. Before Jaime could even register he’d done it, Bart was kissing him again chest to chest. Jaime’s stomach flipped.

 _Jesus_ , he was going to have to come up with a new set of heat-related vocabulary just for him. If he’d thought Bart was warm to the touch before, it was _nothing_ compared to the current inferno of having this much of him pressed this close, skin to skin.

Bart threaded his fingers into Jaime’s hair, his kisses becoming so dizzyingly quick they were hard to keep up with. Lightheaded, Jaime smoothed his hands over Bart’s sides, hoping to calm him—

—and nearly passed out as that backfired spectacularly.

Rather than slowing him down, Jaime’s touch sped Bart all the way _up_ , Bart’s shiver turning into a full-on _vibration_ as he gasped with pleasure into Jaime’s mouth.

The surge of sensation was so overwhelming he almost threw Bart off him in surprise—or _would’ve_ if his brain hadn’t _bluescreened_. Instead, it was all he could do to bite off a swear and dig his nails into Bart’s hips to try to still him, which didn’t work either.

“Guepardo, I—I’m really gonna need you to stop doing that,” he choked.

To his relief, Bart stopped before things got considerably more embarrassing, both their chests heaving as they tried to catch their breath. Bart stared down at him, dazed, as the firelight glowed softly in his tousled hair. His mouth was parted and kiss-swollen, red as the flush high on his cheeks. Jaime’s pulse snagged, beating out of sync.

“What—oh,” Bart realized belatedly. “Sorry,” he said with a small, sheepish chuckle. “Didn’t notice.” Jaime shot a wobbly smile back at him.

 _“O-kay._ Well, today I learned…” he murmured, a little sheepish himself. Bart ducked his head into the curve of Jaime’s shoulder, embarrassed, and snaked his arms tight around Jaime’s neck.

Jaime let his head fall back as he waited for the blood to stop rushing through his ears, body buzzing with nerves and a fragile, new kind of happiness that he suddenly, desperately wanted to claim.

Returning to _some_ semblance of calm, he reached down to tug the duvet back over them from where it had fallen, letting the coziness of the fire and nest of blankets engulf them.

 _Ay, dios, Bart era un volcancito ridículo._ He really was like Jaime’s own personal space heater, pressed this close on top of him, heart beating twice for each one of his.

He stared at the soft golden fuzz along the curve of Bart’s ear, at the trio of moles on the side of his neck, and the mess of stubborn auburn strands sticking up by the crown of his head. He waited for the weirdness to hit. For something to feel off or wrong.

It didn’t. If anything, it was like a puzzle piece he hadn’t realized was missing had clicked into place. Like a barrier he hadn’t known existed between them had fallen away. It was far from the first time he’d had Bart curled up this close to him, but the difference now was he finally understood what this feeling of rightness, a feeling he’d never thought twice about all this time, actually _meant_.

When Bart didn’t reemerge after a couple of minutes, Jaime risked a small peck to Bart’s shoulder and the corner of his jaw to try to coax him out of hiding. Green eyes peered shyly up at him, that brash and urgent confidence gone, fading like the heat of the moment.

Jaime trailed his fingertips along the slope of Bart’s spine, his stomach fluttering. Then he leaned in to kiss him again, softer this time. Bart's eyes fell closed, relaxing into it.

Jaime pulled back slowly, staying close enough that the tips of their noses were touching. “Well, hi.”

Bart smiled like he couldn’t help it and shoved his face into the pillow with an embarrassed groan. Jaime pursed his lips, fighting back his own smile as something bright filled his chest.

“Stop _hiding_ from me, what is this?” he chided, poking Bart’s side.

“No,” Bart said, muffled. “You can’t make me.”

Jaime raised a challenging brow even though Bart couldn’t see it, nosing in close so his breath ghosted over Bart’s ear. “Wanna bet?”

To Jaime’s supreme smugness, Bart shivered with an overwhelmed little grumble of protest. This was a _much_ more fun way to torment him.

“I _will_ fight you,” Bart whined petulantly into the pillow. Jaime laughed.

He rolled onto his side and squeezed Bart affectionately. Bart merely adjusted while Jaime was turning them, keeping his face firmly away as his ears turned red.

“ _Bart,_ vuelve aquí,” Jaime whined, nudging his hip.

“No entiendo,” Bart shot back.

“I said, ‘come back here,’” Jaime translated. Bart stuck his tongue out then hid again.

“No—and hey, I’ll even say it in Spanish: ‘No.’”

“Wow. How ‘bout you tell me the Spanish word for ‘brat?’” Jaime tickled him. “You ought to know _that_ one by now, too.”

Bart squirmed, and Jaime could tell he was smiling but he didn’t budge. Jaime rested his forehead against Bart’s temple, waiting.

“...I just,” Bart murmured finally. “I hadn’t planned on you finding out like this. Or, _ever_.”

Jaime’s smile faded.

“Ever, huh?” he said softly.

“Definitely ever.”

“Why?”

“Why do you _think?”_

That was fair. Still, though.

Jaime shifted closer, wrapping his arm more snugly around Bart’s narrow waist. Bart finally reemerged, his hair brushing against Jaime’s forehead as his breath ghosted across his face.

“You’re important to me, too,” Bart said softly. “I didn’t want to risk you...I don’t know, never wanting to talk to me again? Or worse, still talking to me but it’s all moded and awkward forever just because you were too nice to outright ditch me.”

Jaime’s heart panged.

He _wanted_ to disagree, to tell him those fears were unfounded and he’d _never_ do that. If he’d been in Bart’s place though...he likely would’ve thought the same thing.

“I figured…” Bart continued, “being friends with you is already so crash, that it could just be enough, you know? And I’d get over it eventually.”

A string of emotions swelled in Jaime’s chest.

“Lo siento, correcaminos,” he murmured. “I had no idea.”

Bart shrugged one shoulder. “Not your fault. That was by design.” His tone took on a self deprecating edge. “I’m _usually_ a good liar, remember?”

Jaime’s brow furrowed.

“Ey,” he poked his side again. “Come on, none of that. We’re not supposed to have big secrets from each other anymore, ¿recuerdas?”

“I’ll always have some big secrets, Jaime,” Bart said quietly.

“No _current_ ones then,” Jaime amended. “Your future secrets—or uh, past secrets? Whatever. Point being, those don’t count. You know what I meant.”

Bart’s gaze dropped. “I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it’d ever be relevant. Like I said, I thought I’d get over it.”

Jaime’s throat tightened. He hated that Bart had been feeling that way, for any length of time. Hated even _more_ that he, one of the people supposedly closest to him, hadn’t even _noticed_.

Closing the small gap between them, Jaime brought a hand to Bart’s cheek and kissed him again. Maybe he couldn’t erase those past feelings, but he could at least start to balance them out a little. Bart leaned into his touch but didn’t stop talking, as if now that he’d started he needed to get it all out.

“I thought I _did_ get over it when you started dating Traci. I thought because I liked her as a person, that meant it wasn’t possible for me to be jealous—”

Bart kissed _him_ this time, interrupting himself as if he needed the press of Jaime’s lips to keep going. Like the inverse of coming up for air.

“It’s why Ed left. He’ll never say it, but I know it is. I was in denial, and it was unfair, and I couldn’t tell but _he_ could—”

Before Jaime could say anything to _that_ his eyes fell closed of their own accord as Bart’s lips met his for a third kiss, longer this time.

“—And losing _him_ hurt _so much_ that I was scared it would be three times as bad if I lost you—”

“You won’t,” Jaime managed to interject, the words barely reverberating against Bart’s lips before they were swallowed by another kiss.

“I didn’t _know_ that,” Bart shot back, the quiet words traveling hot across Jaime’s lips as Bart scarcely moved away to speak. “I still don’t know that. It still scares me. But it’s so _hard,_ to—to not think about you like _this_ ,” he explained, breathless, between increasingly deeper kisses. “I just like you _so_ much.”

The taste of Bart’s tongue slid down to the center of Jaime’s belly like warm honey. Jaime cupped Bart’s jaw and leaned back to catch his breath.

There was a _lot_ to unpack there, but he was thoroughly distracted by the way those last words took up all the space between his ribs.

Joy bounced around inside him, mischief tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Wait, so you're saying you have a crush on me?” he asked, deadpan. “Wow, how embarrassing.”

The laughter broke out of him as Bart backhanded his chest. Stuck somewhere between pissed off and amused, Bart shoved at him and tried to wiggle away. Jaime simply held him tighter, giggling into his neck.

“Listen, you,” Bart threatened, trying to school the smile off his face, “You think they’d ever find the body if I left you out here? Don’t try me right now.”

Jaime grinned, caging Bart beneath him and doing his best to make his next kiss deep enough to drown in.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, waiting until Bart was looking directly into his eyes so he could be sure Bart knew he _meant_ it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _Mírame_ \- Look at me
> 
>  _A la madre_ \- A versatile phrase that can mean a lot of dif things depending on the context, in this case surprise/frustration (lit. “to the mother”)
> 
>  _Y chale_ \- Chale is kinda hard to explain bc it’s more of an idiom the a phrase w/ a direct translation; basically you use it to express irony + frustration, etc
> 
>  _¡ay, qué menso!_ \- What a dummy!
> 
>  _¿Qué rayos dices?_ \- What the heck are you saying?
> 
>  _Mierda_ \- Shit
> 
>  _Ven aquí_ \- Come here
> 
>  _I’dmuchratherforgetitthanloseyouasafriend_ \- I’d much rather forget it than lose you as a friend
> 
>  _Guepardito_ \- Little cheetah
> 
>  _bicho pesado_ \- Annoying bug
> 
>  _Vamonos_ \- Let's go
> 
>  _Ay, dios, Bart era un volcancito ridículo_ \- God, Bart was a ridiculous little volcano.
> 
>  _No entiendo_ \- I don't understand
> 
>  _Lo siento_ \- I'm sorry
> 
>  _Correcaminos_ \- Roadrunner
> 
>  _¿Recuerdas?_ \- Remember?
> 
> TL;DR  
> Bart Allen, when angry: _*Mach-speed punches*_  
>  Bart Allen, when angry at one, Jaime Reyes: _*Mach-speed kisses*_
> 
> Jaime Reyes, when angry: _*Fires laser cannon*_  
>  Jaime Reyes, when angry at one, Bart Allen: _*Dotes on aggressively*_
> 
> Next chapter is the epilogue, y'all! Hope you've enjoyed!! :)


	5. Epilogue

_“Robin to Kid Flash, come in Kid Flash.”_

_“Blue, it’s Wonder Girl. If you hear us, send a sign.”_

_“Beast Boy to team Bluepulse—oh wait, that doesn’t work anymore. Blueflash? KidBeetle?”_

_“Speedbuggy?”_

_“Ooo, Speedbuggy! Good one, Static. In case you were wondering, we’re freezing our asses off out here. And no, I am not using humor as a coping mechanism to mask how worried I am about you. What are you guys, my moms?”_

“Focus, _BB.”_

_“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!”_

_“My dude, did you really just ‘ma’am’ Oracle?”_

_“Alpha squad,_ try _to stay on task please. We’re_ all _worried about them, that’s why we’re out here. Robin to KF, do you copy?”_

Bart stirred, lifting his head from where it’d been tucked against Jaime’s chest. He blinked fitfully, trying to crane his neck around toward the kitchen. Jaime’s arm was a warm weight across his back, their legs tangled together.

“Blue...radio,” Bart mumbled groggily, disentangling himself from the nest of blankets they’d curled up in, facing each other as they slept.

Jaime’s breathing changed, his head shifting. Brown eyes cracked open a fraction, Bart’s movement waking him.

“Nng,” Jaime dragged his palm across his face, “¿Qué esta pasando?”

“Heard Tim,” Bart answered, feeling more alert by the second as he darted into the kitchen. He shivered from the cold, fumbling for his comm.

_“Robin to Kid Flash. I repeat, come in Kid Flash—”_

Bart turned the radio’s volume up, raising the comm closer to his mouth.

“ _Gooood_ morning,” Bart sang, “is that the dulcet tones of the pizza delivery boy, or am I still dreaming?”

Whoops rang out across the line.

“— _Bart!”_

_“—Ha! Hell yes!”_

_“—Guys, circle up! We found them!”_

Bart grinned, excitement and relief filling his chest.

 _“Good to hear your voice, KF,”_ Tim said. _“Is Blue with you?”_

As he opened his mouth to answer, Jaime’s bare chest slotted warmly up against his back. Bart’s pulse skipped. 

“Yeah, right here, ese,” Jaime said, voice raspy with sleep but equally relieved. “Real good to hear you guys, too.”

Jaime’s chin brushed Bart’s cheek as he spoke, one of his arms lifting to hook around Bart's middle as he gave him a proud, celebratory squeeze.

“Buen trabajo, guepardo,” he whispered out of range of the comm. “Set up works like a charm.”

Bart’s stomach flipped. He smiled back, sinking into him.

Man, maybe he _was_ still dreaming.

_“Where are you guys? Do you have coordinates?”_

“No coordinates,” Bart answered, “But the good news is we found a cabin in the woods, so we’re sheltered.”

“If you’re in range,” Jaime added, “I can send sonic waves out. Should make us easier to track down.”

“Honestly, we could be ten minutes from a town, for all we know,” Bart said. “Which would be crash, because I really _could_ use a pizza right about now—or _ohman_ if there was a Big Belly Burger andtheystillhavethosecurlyfriesyoucandunkintheirmilkshakes—”

“ _KF,”_ Tim redirected, amused.

“ _Yep,_ sorry. Point being, it was snowing too hard for us to tell much of anything about the surrounding area. We were waiting for the storm to calm down before exploring.”

 _“Burgers are on me as soon as we pick you up, buddy,”_ Gar chuckled. _“We took the bioship, so as soon as you get that signal going, we should find you in a flash.”_

Groans reverberated across the line.

“Ay.” Jaime shook his head. “Wonder Girl, I’m assigning you to take that one in my stead. Please respond accordingly.”

 _“Roger that,”_ Cassie said as Gar yelped. _“Already on it.”_

 _“Ow, dude!”_ Gar whined. _“Not crash!”_

Bart shook with silent laughter.

_“Alright Alpha, you heard them. Let’s move out, back to the bioship. Robin over and out.”_

“Roger that, Robbie,” Bart said, “See you soon.”

He flipped the comm offline to save the battery. With a tired grunt, Jaime flopped onto one of the kitchen chairs and then dragged Bart down with him, plunking his forehead between Bart’s shoulder blades. Bart’s lips curled as he scooted back into him to fit more comfortably in his lap.

He rested an arm over both of Jaime’s where they were wrapped snug around him. Every bit of his insides felt simultaneously floaty and melty in the best way.

 _“How_ are you still sleepy right now?” Bart teased. Even though Jaime wasn’t a morning person, he’d have thought all this excitement would be enough to wake him.

“Maybe ‘cause _someone_ thought it was a good idea to keep me up half the night kissing him,” Jaime reminded.

Bart’s face warmed. He pursed his lips, trying to clamp down on his grin.

“See, I don’t see how that’s _my_ fault,” he said innocently. “You’re the one who’s supposed to set a good example.” Jaime snorted.

 _“Speaking_ of doing the responsible thing,” he sighed, reluctant, “I should go put that cannon on blast.” Bart started shifting out of his lap to get out of his way, but Jaime thwarted that plan, holding him fast. Bart looked over his shoulder at him in amusement.

“Pretty sure you can’t do that from here, Blue,” he said.

“Lo sé. I’m getting up,” Jaime alleged without any sign of movement. “Any second now.”

Bart shook his head. As crash as the thought of more alone time with Jaime was, his stomach was starting to complain. Luckily, there was a simple solution to get Jaime’s butt into gear.

“Okay, but hear me out,” Bart said. “What if you _didn’t,_ and we stayed here like, _half_ an extra day.”

Predictably, Jaime’s brow scrunched as he lifted his head, the threat of Bart’s irresponsibility finally rousing him. Bart had to hold his breath for a second to suppress his laughter. Too easy.

“You need real food, gordito mio,” Jaime argued with fond exasperation. “You can’t subsist solely on jam and kisses.”

Bart tsked. “Not with that attitude.”

His laughter broke free as Jaime rolled his eyes and shoved him.

Bart was still snickering as he got to his feet, Jaime rising off the chair as well and stretching his arms up over his head until his shoulders popped.

“Ugh, for real though. Gonna go give that signal.” Jaime wiped a hand across his face again to chase the sleep away, then pressed a light kiss to Bart’s forehead as he passed.

Y’know. As if that was a _totally normal thing_ they always did.

Bart could feel the corners of his mouth stretching into an idiotic grin, but whatever. Jaime wasn’t looking at him.

As Jaime made his way around the nest of blankets, he scooped up his sweatshirt from where Bart had discarded it the night before. Warmth swelled in Bart’s belly again from the memory.

If he focused hard enough, he swore he could still feel the warm, welcome pressure of Jaime’s mouth against his, the reality of kissing him a thousand times more crash than he’d ever dared let himself imagine.

 _“I’m not going anywhere,”_ Jaime had told him, his mouth scarcely a breath apart from his. Overwhelmed, Bart could do nothing but stare up at him, a tender smile rising on his lips.

 _“So…”_ he’d traced a mindless pattern on Jaime’s bicep, gaze dropping. _“I mean, we don't have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. But, does this mean you’d, um…maybe want to be…”_

Jaime’d raised an amused eyebrow. _“Partners? Sure, done.”_

 _“Oh my god.”_ Bart rolled his head to the side with an exasperated grin. Jaime laughed.

 _“Well let’s see, I already pay for all your food, spend most of my free time with you, let you cuddle on the couch with me every time you think you aren’t being given enough attention—”_ Jaime listed as Bart’s blush grew.

 _“Ugh! Can you be serious for like one second?”_ Bart complained, laughing in embarrassment.

 _“I am being serious,”_ Jaime chuckled back. _“Honestly the more we talk about it, the more I’m starting to think I_ already got _roped into being your boyfriend and you just forgot to tell me.”_

Bart had ducked his head with a sheepish smile. _“Maybe. And yet you never figured it out, so what’s that say about you?”_

 _“Oh, I’m definitely feeling like el hombre bobo,_ _I’m not tryna refute that.”_

That made Bart giggle again, the soft sound spilling directly from the light that had filled up the entirety of his chest. Jaime’d brushed a stray lock of hair away from Bart’s face, his smile sweet.

 _“Hey, in all seriousness?”_ he’d answered, pressing a gentle kiss to Bart’s lips. _“If that’s what you’d like, correcaminos, then yeah. I’m all in.”_

It hit Bart then, that this was real. That he had kissed Jaime and somehow the world hadn’t ended. He’d never truly let himself believe that Jaime would want to kiss him back. That him finding out would be a _good_ thing—the _most_ good thing. The most crash thing _ever._

Rather than putting the sweatshirt on, Jaime armored up to his neck and tossed the hoodie back at him. Bart caught it right before it hit his face.

He raised a brow. “Uh, Blue? I thought _you_ were the one going outside.”

“Regulated heating, ¿recuerdas?” Jaime pointed to the scarab on his back. _“But_ , I mean if you don’t want it—”

“ _Whoops_ ,” Bart proclaimed, speeding the piece of clothing over his head in an instant. “Sorry, what was that? Couldn’t hear you.”

Jaime’s lips twitched.

“Try not to burn the house down while I’m gone,” he said, turning toward the door again. “I should be back in a few minutes.”

Discreetly, Bart tugged the collar up over his nose and inhaled. It smelled mostly like woodsmoke and cold, but there were lingering traces of Jaime, too, like always. His heart danced.

Overflowing with a sudden swell of happiness, he dashed in front of Jaime right before he reached the door, sliding his arms around Jaime’s neck and smooshing their lips together again.

It was a ridiculous kiss. Silly and uncoordinated. It was _warm_ though, and nice.Like, _so freaking nice_. And to be fair, that was more or less how he felt.

Startled, Jaime’s hands rose automatically to Bart’s waist. Half a second later he kissed him back, huffing a laugh.

“Is this gonna be a trend with you?” he teased, poking Bart’s stomach.

Bart released him with an innocent shrug, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and stepping back toward the kitchen with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure one day you’ll catch— _umf._ ”

Jaime’s arm shot out to curve around Bart’s middle, sweeping him back to his side as he cut Bart off with a retaliatory kiss. Bart’s heart skipped in surprise, his stomach leaping. The corner of Jaime’s mouth started forming into a smug curve before the kiss was even over, but Bart was too giddy to be mad about it.

“My bad, were you saying something?” Jaime taunted, voice low, stirring fire again in Bart’s belly.

Fighting a dopey smile, Bart pushed him away with an annoyed groan.

“Just go do your thing,” he whined, _certain_ that the heat in his cheeks meant he was redder than a stupid tomato already. Jaime laughed.

“Si tú lo dices, guepardito mio,” he cooed, blowing a kiss from the doorway like the little shit he was. Bart rolled his eyes, sure he was only blushing harder even as he flipped him off.

As soon as the door closed he flipped up his hood and pulled the drawstrings tight with a happy, embarrassed groan. Covering the small opening over his face with his palms, he fell backwards onto the crappy couch and grinned so wide his cheeks hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _¿Qué esta pasando?_ \- What's happening?  
>  _andtheystillhavethosecurlyfriesyoucandunkintheirmilkshakes_ \- and they still have those curly fries you can dunk in their milkshakes  
>  _Lo sé_ \- I know  
>  _gordito mio_ \- Lit. ‘my little fatty’ (Spanish term of endearment)  
>  _el hombre bobo_ \- the stupid man ('bobo' is yet another word I've picked up from Ivy)  
>  _¿recuerdas?_ \- remember?  
>  _Si tú lo dices, guepardito mio_ \- If you say so, my little cheetah
> 
> That's a wrap, folks!
> 
> One more thanks to [pootoyoutoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potooyoutoo) and [CasualThursday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualThursday) for being the best betas, to [ivyxwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyxwrites) for being so much fun to talk to about writing, fandom, and bluepulse, & for being so kind as to answer all my Spanish questions, and of course, to all of you for reading & commenting.
> 
> Hope you had fun! <3


End file.
